The Question Without an Answer

If I stay, I lose myself.

Piece by piece,

I become a stranger wearing my own face,

trading dreams for memories,

and tomorrows for the ghosts of yesterday.

If I leave, I lose you.

Not all at once,

but in a thousand quiet ways,

the absence of your voice,

the silence where your name once lived,

the empty space beside every thought.

If I wait,

it will never be me.

I will remain a chapter half-written,

watching you choose another story,

holding a place in my heart

for someone who no longer lives there.

But if I move on,

it will never be you.

No matter who follows,

they will never carry your laugh,

your flaws,

or the pieces of my soul

you took with you when you left.

So what should I do?

Stay and disappear?

Leave and grieve?

Wait for a miracle

that neither of us intends to make?

Or walk away

and bury the only future

I ever truly wanted?

I stand between love and loss,

only to find they have become

the very same thing.

And perhaps that is the cruelest answer:

There is no path

that does not hurt.

Only one that hurts forever,

and one that eventually heals.