Last Goodbyes

Imi

Each of us standing in the doorway of a goodbye —
some grieving it,
some learning from it,
some becoming through it.
This is where we parted from what we were,
and met who we are now.

⸻

Elijah —

Letting the Goodbye Finish

Last goodbyes —
they say they happen for a reason.
That there’s a lesson to be learnt,
or a reason it needed to happen.

Maybe that is true.
But it doesn’t make it hurt any less.

⸻

Sholomo

If I lived every day like it’s my first,
maybe as I awoke to the life that is me,
I would notice my heart beating in my chest.
It’s beating. It can’t stop.

Maybe I would notice that I’m breathing too —
breathing in air without even asking.
My chest expands, then deflates through my nose.

⸻

JG

It’s nine a.m. It’s Sunday.
The house is quiet, each of us absorbed in our own entertainment,
and I’ve opened my laptop to write.

I almost wrote “finally,” but that is a judgment on myself
that wouldn’t make me wiser or kinder — so I didn’t.
Instead, I noticed it.

⸻

İmi

I used to live on extremes,
either all or none.
Some days were unfiltered and light;
others were too filtered and heavy.

There are places you arrive,
and places you never reach.

⸻

Pm

Life didn’t grant us enough days,
but in the mind’s quiet museum,
time holds no power.

You are preserved there — vivid and whole —
a permanent resident of my inner world.

Seasons hailed,
fields rained,
breezy days claimed,
the future sailed.

⸻

Elijah

The last few years have held so many final goodbyes.
Each one, as necessary as it was, wasn’t easy.
They helped me grow, but they caused a lot of grief as well.

My girlfriend — trying to find love in all the wrong places
while I was there all along.
I’ll never speak to her again,
but she still holds a place in my heart.

⸻

Pm

The sky’s blue keeps your fading hue —
a restless light I passed through.

I’m the keeper of your laughter.
I don’t wanna keep up with you,
I don’t wanna walk with you.
Still, I came to feel the last of you…

Before the sun sets,
before chances are void.

I can’t play hide and seek with yesterday;
it never comes again the same way.

Let time pass on.
Before you go —
will I speak or cry?
Just keep missing you?

You’re not bound to me.
You’re the absence my eyes still reach for,
and change is here, pulling me to light.

Now that the time has passed,
I’ll meet you in some other sky.
For tonight, I’ll fall.
For now — love, and goodbye.

⸻

Priya

Your laughter rang in my ears,
as I said farewell in tears.
Your hugs, our walks, our talks
are still locked in my mind’s box.

Watching TV serials with you,
when you served me food with joy;
your jokes and playful teasing —
those times I did enjoy.

I still see our videos,
and our every photo.
They make me happy —
but also sorrow.

⸻

İmi

I dread not because of the cold itself,
but because of the way your absence
leaves me shivering.

I’ve never been into werewolves,
but that’s the only way
I can explain your heat.

If that’s the case,
then I confess I’m falling for a mythological creature
that does not exist.

And I can’t help but wonder —
what if you weren’t anything further than a myth?

You returned an old version of me
back to myself,
calling me in ways
my mind knows too well how to address.

It’s not the climax I’m experiencing —
it’s the in-between
where I could gear up and go full speed,
or refrain from falling into fantasies.

⸻

Elijah

My addictions — which helped me block my traumas
instead of face them.
There are still days I miss the chaos,
where life felt less linear.
But the pain was still there.

My cat — my buddy through the lowest lows,
when I couldn’t handle them alone.
I had to learn to be strong without others.

And one of my friends,
who couldn’t handle the pain and passed on.
The last person I ever expected.
⸻
Priya

So much I wanted to say.
I’m angry and I sigh,
that your death stole our time,
and all I could say was goodbye.
⸻
Elijah

It all taught me that everything is temporary,
and what you have now is worth embracing.
Sometimes life gives you lessons in painful ways.

⸻

İmi

When memories took up the entire shelf,
the death of a self —
the one that confined me to an identity
I was never meant to be fixed in —
made it harder to make sense of my path.

⸻

JG

It has officially been two weeks since my last day at my corporate job.
I’d call these two weeks a pause —
though not exactly.

⸻

İmi

When everything inside me became too tangled to name,
I turned to writing —
the only place my emotions have ever made sense.

⸻

JG

The first week I became a literal sloth.
I’m grateful I am loved enough to rest that way.
I’m still a mom, so the rest wasn’t uninterrupted,
but the interruptions now come from people I love with my whole heart.

The difference changes everything.

⸻

İmi

A heart trying to speak honestly for the first time
found its voice —
learning its language
of connection,
of loss,
and of the fragile architecture of love.

Clarity surfaced —
the kind I had avoided for months —
and something shifted.

The real story was not about being seen.
It was about being heard.

What I want to carry with me
is the courage to be honest with myself.

⸻

JG

I’m learning that much of my negative emotion around responsibility
comes from habit and perspective rather than reality.

That awareness feels like rewiring.
It feels like getting to know myself.

I respond to endings with anxiety —
afraid I won’t succeed through the change,
afraid of judgment.

⸻

Imi

Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedMy mind would constantly search for the next best thing,
just so it wouldn’t have to face the inevitable passing
of whatever was bringing me joy.

Even so, I tend to create joy
just as much as I seek it.

I find happiness
in little details that people tend to overlook.
My imagination creates entire worlds when this one feels like it has nothing new to offer.

Yet, I also looked for reasons
to undo my joy,
As if I was trying to take my own happiness away,
just as I was the one who created it ın the fırst place.
The core of my power
had always been the core of my issues too.Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when published⸻

JG

But that path doesn’t feel loving.
It doesn’t feel peaceful.

Ending a career is no small thing.
I entered that chapter as a younger woman,
and I’m leaving it changed by marriage, motherhood,
and a spiritual awakening that reshaped everything.

So I’m taking my time with this ending.
I’m allowing myself to slowly say goodbye.
It deserves that.
I don’t need to rush toward what comes next.

⸻

Sholomo

Maybe I would walk in the world and marvel at it —
at how beautiful it is.
Maybe I would look at life and say,
“I’m glad I got this opportunity.”

Maybe I should live every day like it’s my first.
It seems like a way —
a way to be in the world.
A way that lets us wonder,
and be thankful,
and open.
⸻

Elijah

So to all that’s happened these last few years…
⸻

JG

For now, it is enough to be here,
in this quiet morning —
letting the goodbye finish.
⸻

Imi

And from then on,
the creation of a new self emerges —
becoming louder than anything that came before.

With each sunrise,
we return to ourselves.

Every breath
is a beginning.
Every awakening,
a quiet revolution
of becoming.

Every dawn,
a farewell,
to the versions
of us that are finally retiring.
⸻

Elijah

Goodbye.
Good riddance.
And farewell.

Six writers. One shared threshold.
Each of us standing in the doorway of a goodbye.
Some grieving it, some learning from it, some becoming through it.

This collaboration was created for the final five picks of the last Threads & Gems of the year. I wanted to honour the tradition by closing the year the way it began: through voices rather than noise, through presence rather than performance.

For the past weeks of Threads & Gems, I read everything. I listened to the pieces you shared and the places they came from. I recognised the grief that reshaped you, the turning points, the undone moments, and the quiet victories that did not need to shout to be real.

This collaboration is what returned from that exchange.
It holds memory.
It holds the ache of outgrowing old versions of ourselves.
It holds all the endings that did not slam, but settled.

This is not a farewell to who we were.
It is a recognition of what we outgrew,
and a soft arrival into what almost-begins.

If you feel like you are on a bridge between selves,
you are not alone here.

Thank you to writers,

Elijah Westin pm JGWunderlich Priya Hinduja and Shlomo Richler who stood in this doorway with me.

With love always,

imi 🤍

Threads and Gems is a weekly series where I choose five pieces from my subscribers and feature them. I read, I respond, and I highlight the voices that stay with me. It’s my way of giving back to the people who show up here, not just as readers, but as creators in their own right.

This piece was born from its collaborators. It carries fingerprints, breaths, and pauses from every voice that shaped it. That’s what makes it alive.

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