When I'm Gone

When I’m gone, don’t search the rooms

I won’t be hiding in the quiet

I’ve left enough of myself in you

In how you love, in what you try

I didn’t live loud, but I lived true

Measured my days, respected time

Every scar I carried taught me

How to stay gentle and still survive

I learned time isn’t promised, it’s borrowed

So I spent it learning how to feel

Not faster, not louder just honest

That was the most real thing I did

I learned the body fades

But care doesn’t

And love doesn’t leave

It just finds new ways

To stay

When I’m gone, don’t say I lost

I was here, I felt, I stayed

I learned how fragile life can be

And chose it anyway

If you remember anything of me

Let it be this tone

I wasn’t afraid of dying

I was grateful to have known

Tell the story softly if you need

Not the fear, not the machines

Say I listened to my heartbeat

Like it was teaching me

Tell them I stopped rushing the future

Stopped asking for more than today

I made peace with the fragile moments

And that’s where I learned how to stay

Say I moved carefully, yes

But I still moved forward

Say I loved in full sentences

Not in hurry, not disorder

I didn’t stop dreaming.

I just learned what mattered.

I didn’t give up on life.

I learned how to listen to it.

I don’t need monuments.

I need peace.

I don’t need forever.

I had now.

When I’m gone, look forward still

Don’t live smaller on my behalf

If I gave you anything at all

Let it be the courage to last

I didn’t beat time, I honored it

That was my way through

And if you hear me in quiet moments

That’s where I’ll still be with you

And if my name comes up someday

Let it come with grace

I wasn’t defined by what I faced

I was defined by how I stayed

When I’m gone…

I’ll still be here.

Just quieter.