When I Leave

When I leave,

then I leave you too.

Not because the love disappeared,

not because the memories stopped clawing at my ribs,

but because forgetting you

is not something I was ever built to do.

You remain in everything.

The silence after songs end,

The empty passenger seats,

The habits I still carry,

All like fingerprints that refuse to fade.

But holding on

has become its own kind of drowning.

A slow descent beneath waves

made from hope, longing, and what-ifs.

I cannot keep reaching for a hand

that no longer reaches back.

So when I leave,

I must leave completely.

I must walk far enough away

to hear my own thoughts again.

To learn who I am

without orbiting your gravity.

To build a life that feels like mine,

not one haunted by the shape of us.

Maybe happiness is not waiting for me,

but I have to try to find it anyway.

Because loving you

has cost me pieces of myself

I can no longer afford to lose.

And though my heart will still whisper your name

in quiet moments,

I know staying would only keep us both

trapped inside a story

that has already ended.

So when I leave,

I leave with love still in my chest,

with grief in my hands,

and with the smallest hope

that somewhere beyond this pain

there is still a version of me

capable of feeling whole again.