Can We Have Just Five More Minutes?

Can we have five more minutes?

If it’s not too much. I just need to savor this—this very moment, in this very place, where only you and I exist. 

Five more minutes, I promise it will be enough. I think it will be. I guess. I hope. Just five more minutes so I can have a few more to cherish, a few more details I can look back on and hold on to when the end comes because I know without a doubt that we are nearing our end. And all I’d need is this, this memory of us, our final five more minutes.

Do you still remember? When all we wanted was to be left alone together and we’d always bargain for five more minutes in silence? That was my favorite thing in the world. Our eyes would meet, and they’d talk, and everything was okay. No matter what chaos awaited us, everything would be fine. Now I know I can’t keep you for as long as I’d want or longer than you intend to stay, and damn it, if that was even possible, I would very much want you to stay. I’d keep you here in this very moment, in this very place where only you and I exist.

But that isn’t how this works, is it? You are slipping away. You will slip away. And I know that the feelings you once said you had for me that were too strong to pass are now passing, fading away like ashes or snow or whatever metaphor or ridiculous, pretentious cliche there is.

I’m saying I’m not gonna stop you. I’m not gonna make you choose me. You can now cut that rope tying the both of us together.

You are, as you should, free.

But again, if it’s not too much, can we have five more minutes? 

Just so when my world crumbles down the moment you walk away, I’ll have those minutes where you chose to stay a little bit and be with me. I’ll have those minutes of you—the way you look at me, the way you whisper the silliest things in my ear, the way you smile those nervous smiles even when there isn’t anything to be nervous about. I’ll see your face and the way they brighten up at the mention of your favorite things. Give me just five more minutes to remember the lines on your palms, and how your hand feels when you hold my hand like you’d never let me go. Let me, for the last time, feel your warmth.

Let me at least have those precious minutes where you chose me. 

So, can we? Have five more minutes?