30 Days Left to Live

Not my poems but a couple I came across that made me think.

Thirty days, a fragile thread of light,
stretched between the waking and the night.
I count them softly on my open palm,
each one a tide that rises into calm.

Day one, I learn the language of goodbye,
how every glance can hold a sky.
Day five, I taste the rain like wine,
and feel the seconds thicken into time.

By day ten, laughter rings a deeper tone,
a borrowed song in brittle bone.
Day fifteen, I write my name in sand,
and watch it vanish from the land.

Day twenty, I forgive the younger me,
for all the ways I failed to see.
Day twenty-three, I hold a stranger’s hand,
and know we walk the same, uncertain land.

Day twenty-seven, I speak my quiet truth,
the one I hid in rusted youth.
Day twenty-nine, the world is sharp and clear,
a single, perfect, trembling sphere.

On the last day, I do not chase the sun;
it finds me where my journey’s almost done.
I breathe once more, and in that final breath,
thirty days of life outshine my death.

- Unknown Author

If I had 30 days left,
I think I'd stay quiet.
Not because I'm afraid
but because I know what would change.

Suddenly,
there would be time for me.
The unread message would be answered.
The postponed visits would happen.
The "maybe tomorrow" would become "I'm here".

Dad would start coming home early,
just to sit beside me a little longer.
Mom would stop saying "later" 
and hold me in her arms,
like she used to when I was small.
My friends would finally reply on time,
make plans, show up, and stay.
Everyone would become
the versions of themselves
I've been missing for years.

Funny, isn't it?
It takes the thought of losing someone
to make people hold them tighter.

I just wish
I didn't have to disappear
for my presence
to finally be enough.

- Unknown Author