The Second Death I Am Afraid Of
Oluwagbenga Abiola@oluwagbengaabiola322369
7 days ago
The Second Death I Am Afraid Of
I am not crying because you are gone.
No
that day already came and did its worst.
It tore something out of me
and left me standing,
breathing,
but not whole.
I survived that day.
What I am afraid of now…
is something quieter.
Something crueler.
Forgetting.
Because I tried to hear you this morning
really tried
not casually, not like memory is a game
but like someone searching for air underwater.
And your voice,
it didn’t come the way it used to.
It came broken.
Like a radio losing signal.
I heard pieces
but not you.
And it scared me.
Do you understand that kind of fear?
The kind that doesn’t scream,
but slowly wraps its fingers around your heart
and tightens?
Because if I lose your voice…
what happens to all the times you called me?
What happens to the way my name sounded
when it lived in your mouth?
Will it just become...
ordinary?
No.
No, it cannot.
Your voice was never ordinary.
It carried warmth
even when you were tired.
It carried strength
even when life was already taking too much from you.
And now time is trying to take that too.
Greedy thing.
It took your breath
was that not enough?
It took your touch
the hands that made everything feel safe
was that still not enough?
Now it is coming for your voice,
your face,
the little things that only I remember.
And I am here,
fighting time with nothing but memory.
Tell me
how do you win a battle like that?
I look at your face in my mind
over and over again
like I am afraid it will change if I look away.
Because I have seen it happen.
Small details leaving first,
the exact curve of your smile,
the softness in your eyes when you were about to say my name…
They don’t disappear all at once.
They fade.
Slowly.
Disrespectfully.
Like they were never sacred.
But they are sacred.
You are sacred.
And I refuse,
I refuse to let the world reduce you
to “someone I used to know.”
You are not a memory I visit.
You are a presence I carry.
Even now
there are moments I almost turn to tell you something,
something small, something stupid
and halfway through, it hits me again…
There is no one there.
Do you know how many times a person can break
from the same realization?
Because it does not happen once.
It happens again…
and again…
and again.
In the quiet.
In the noise.
In the middle of laughter.
In the middle of nothing.
You are missing everywhere.
And yet
you are the only place I keep running back to.
So listen to me
wherever you are, however far
If there is anything you can do…
anything at all
Don’t let me forget you.
Fight for me the way I am fighting for you.
Sit in my mind.
Echo in my silence.
Refuse to fade.
Because I can survive your absence
I have been forced to.
But I cannot survive a world
where I try to remember you
and fail.
That…
that would be your second death.
And I am not strong enough
to bury you twice.
Written by @oluwagbengaabiola322369
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