Ordinary Night

We left our glasses on the table,

you were halfway out the door.

Said, “Text me when you make it home,” like you’d said a

thousand times before.

Someone laughed about the weather,

someone said we’d meet next week.

Nothing in the room felt different.

Nothing told me I should keep that ordinary night somewhere I’d know

to look for it someday.

If I’d known what I know now,

would I have watched you leave?

Would I have stayed five minutes longer

just to memorize everything?

’Cause the last time never looked like goodbye,

no warning in the room,

no change in the light.

We said, “See you soon,” like we had all the time,

then life kept moving,

and so did I.

No final words, no reason to cry,

just one more ordinary night.

Maybe that’s the hardest thing about goodbye— the last time never looks

like the last time.

There was a house I called forever,

a bedroom at the end of the hall.

One night I slept there like I always did,

never knowing it would be the last.

There were six of us around that table,

talking over one another again.

Now it takes a birthday or a wedding

just to get us in one room again.

And I wonder how many endings I was smiling right through— how

many things became memories while I thought they were still mine to

lose. If someone had whispered,

“This won’t happen this way again,”

would I have held the moment tighter,

or ruined it trying to make it stay?

Maybe we’re not meant to know.

Maybe that’s the mercy of it all.

If every door said,

“This is the last one,”

we’d never learn to leave at all.

So I’m glad I didn’t hold you

like the world was ending then.

I’m glad we laughed about nothing.

I’m glad it felt ordinary when you turned around and waved at

me, and I barely looked up to wave— because for one more

little moment, we still thought we had another day.

The last time never looked like goodbye.

It looked like coffee getting cold at midnight,

like “call me tomorrow,” like “I’ll see you outside,” like nothing was

changing in our lives.

And maybe I don’t need to go back to love the life

that passed me by.

Some things were beautiful because we never knew we were living them

for the last time.

So if tonight is ordinary,

I think I’ll let it be.

Maybe the moments we don’t notice

are the ones we get to keep.