I’ve been better lately not bright, just steady, peace tapping its fingers on my ribs, love learning how to stay quiet. Silence drags me backward though, to when we were together and thought that made us happy, to roads that never asked where we were going and fears I wrote thin, left for the wind to carry.

I keep trying to shut it all somewhere dark, but the past keeps calling, keeps waking me in a bed that knows only my weight. Losing you felt scheduled, we said goodbye so the memory could soften, so it could laugh without drawing blood.

I still don’t know if I chose this or if it chose me first. Letting go scares me, but staying did worse. The way you left still stings, and I’m still grateful. some exits are meant for rescue

What hurts me keeps me awake, so I don’t run straight. I slide, I bend, I move around the sharp. I don’t know how to be a friend after being where you slept, so I fall slowly, repeatedly for strangers, for moments, for anything that keeps me moving.

You remain just difficult to ignore. I pin my fears to bright scraps of paper, leave them where I might pass by. I held onto too much for too long anger, weight, things never meant to last. Now I let the wind decide, and I walk on, lighter, not empty just alive in a quieter way.