ℍ𝕖𝕣 𝕃𝕒𝕤𝕥 ℕ𝕠𝕥𝕚𝕗𝕚𝕔𝕒𝕥𝕚𝕠𝕟

The notification light is a pulse that finally stopped…

A green dot turned to grey in the hollow of the night.

You were the highlight, the sun that accidentally dropped,

Into my glowing screen.

"I'll miss you..."

You were a twin, a soul born in a pair,

A mirror made of starlight, reflecting twice the grace;

But here, across the ocean, in the quiet electric air,

I only knew the video calls with your, laughing face.

When I found out I couldn’t believe it was fair.

"How? When? Why? ... no...."

The "After" is a geography where the borders have all blurred,

Where "Last Seen" is a tombstone on a profile made of glass.

I’m haunting our old chat logs, every saved and sacred word.

Watching the timestamps flicker as the lonely hours pass.

"Where were the signs?"

You spoke of Paris rain and how the cobblestones would shine,

You translated the sorrow of a heart I couldn't see;

You were a thousand miles away, yet every single line,

Was a bridge you built of binary to reach the heart of me.

"Got me looking at these last messages wondering if you knew they were the last..."

What happens when the highlight fades and leaves the canvas cold?

The screen is just a mirror now, reflecting back my grief.

The story of the "online friend" is a story rarely told,

A phantom kind of mourning, sharp and sudden, far too brief.

"We grew up together like sisters. An ocean separated us but our families stayed connected..."

But you were more than data, more than pixels in a row,

You both were the sisters of my spirit.

And though the Seine keeps flowing with a steady, silver glow,

A part of it has frozen in the archives of my mind.

"This isnt real though, right? Your sister...? Its a joke! A cruel joke of course! But I can forgive it...! If you would just come back..."

You are gone into the silence where the WiFi cannot reach,

Beyond the pings and ringing tones,

Beyond the reach of hands.

You left a void in two worlds…

The "After" isn't empty; it is burning, fierce and bright,

With the fire that you started when you made a stranger whole.

"Your light will come back on, if I just check often enough..."

So sleep now, mon amie, where the echoes start to fade,

The twin of every sunrise, the highlight of the years.

The world is darker now, in a way,

Only those of us who knew you can see.

The cursor blinks and waits for you, a heartbeat on the screen.

"Its been a week now. I heard about your funeral... So its not a jest. That should make me feel better... Right...? I need rest..."

But I will carry on the light, and keep the memory clear,

For even when the signal dies and you are no longer seen,

The highlight doesn’t vanish.

It just stays...

Right...

Here.

"You'll be missed."

(In honor of my best friend, who recently died of an aneurysm. Our whole lives we have been friends from thousands of miles apart and we only got to meet three times. This is still fresh... It still hurts...

I cannot say which is worse: To lose someone in person? Where you can visit their funeral and touch the flowers? ...Or to lose someone you knew online and in real life? When they are on the other side of the world? Far from your reach. Far from your well wishes or prayers. I missed her funeral. I couldn't console her twin. I couldn't believe it, and now that I have no choice but to accept it, I wish more than anything I was there...

Thank you for reading. I hope, at the very least, this provides consolation and understanding for anyone who knows this specific, digital silence.)