<p><br/></p><p>I'm tired of shrinking myself so small</p><p>Of biting my tongue until it bleeds inside</p><p>Of catching myself before I trip and fall</p><p>Of drowning in the parts of me I hide</p><p><br/></p><p>Of writing scripts for him against my wall</p><p>I've memorized the way he looks away</p><p>The silence that he gives instead of words</p><p>I've learned to read the things he doesn't say</p><p><br/></p><p>To translate all his absences, his blurs</p><p>To keep on loving him through the decay</p><p>A part of me believes I need the pain</p><p>That suffering is proof that I'm alive today</p><p><br/></p><p>That blood beneath my skin is like the rain</p><p>That only through the wounds do I survive</p><p>That scars are just the price I must sustain</p><p>But God, I'm exhausted from this endless drive</p><p><br/></p><p>From watching every word before it leaves</p><p>From dimming down my fire, my burning light</p><p>From all the ways I've practiced to deceive</p><p>Myself into believing this is right</p><p><br/></p><p>I've said goodbye a thousand different ways</p><p>In whispers underneath my trembling breath</p><p>In journals filled with all my numbered days</p><p>In dreams where I rehearse my own small death</p><p><br/></p><p>In silence that extends for weeks, for days</p><p>And maybe this time will be different still</p><p>Or maybe I'll return like I have done</p><p>But something in me breaks against my will</p><p><br/></p><p>Something in me knows that I should run</p><p>Something in me climbs the steepest hill</p><p>I wonder if he'll notice when I'm gone</p><p>If absence makes a dent inside his world</p><p><br/></p><p>Or if he'll simply carry on and on</p><p>While I'm out here becoming unfurled</p><p>While I'm out here becoming my own dawn</p><p>I really want to choose myself this time</p><p><br/></p><p>I really want to mean the words I speak</p><p>I really want to know that I'm not crime</p><p>That wanting more doesn't make me weak</p><p><br/></p><p>That leaving him is not a shameful crime</p><p>I know it's easier to say than do</p><p>To pack my heart and walk out through the door</p><p>To start again when everything feels new</p><p><br/></p><p>To build myself from nothing, from the floor</p><p>To be the only one who sees me through</p><p>This hurts in ways I didn't think it could</p><p>Like peeling off my skin to find what's real</p><p><br/></p><p>Like questioning if pain means something good</p><p>Like learning not to love the way I feel</p><p>Like leaving home, like leaving childhood</p><p>I laugh sometimes at how pathetic this seems</p><p><br/></p><p>At how I've become my own worst enemy</p><p>At all my grand escape plans, my big dreams</p><p>At how I cage myself then want the key</p><p><br/></p><p>At how I live inside these broken schemes</p><p>I'm angry at the time I gave away</p><p>At all the versions of myself I killed</p><p>At how I learned to shrink throughout the day</p><p><br/></p><p>At every instinct that I never filled</p><p>At how I let my colors turn to gray</p><p>I'm tired of the performance, of the show</p><p>Of being pleasant when I want to scream</p><p><br/></p><p>Of acting like I don't already know</p><p>That this love is thinner than it seems</p><p>That I've been dying in the undertow</p><p>There's something sacred in this kind of grief</p><p><br/></p><p>In mourning someone standing right beside you</p><p>In finding that your absence brings relief</p><p>In knowing that the hardest part is how you</p><p><br/></p><p>Must become your own savior, your own chief</p><p>I'm scared of who I'll be without this weight</p><p>Without the constant calculations, math</p><p>Without the eggshells and the twist of fate</p><p><br/></p><p>Without his validation, his aftermath</p><p>Without the fear that I'm arriving late</p><p>But there's a whisper growing louder now</p><p>A voice that says I'm worthy of the space</p><p><br/></p><p>That I don't need permission to allow</p><p>Myself to take up room, to find my place</p><p>That I can write my ending, I know how</p><p>I'm choosing me, whatever that will mean</p><p><br/></p><p>I'm choosing peace over this painful known</p><p>I'm choosing to become what I've not been</p><p>I'm choosing to believe I'm not alone</p><p><br/></p><p>I'm choosing to step into the unseen</p><p>This might be the last time that I stay</p><p>This might be when I finally let him go</p><p>This might be my beginning, my new day</p><p><br/></p><p>This might be how I finally learn to know</p><p>That loving me is not a price to pay</p><p>And maybe he won't notice, maybe not</p><p>But I will feel the difference in my bones</p><p><br/></p><p>I'll know the freedom that my silence bought</p><p>I'll hear my voice in all its different tones</p><p>I'll tend the garden that I've left to rot</p><p>So here I am, still wavering, still torn</p><p><br/></p><p>Between the comfort of familiar pain</p><p>And the terrifying place where I'm reborn</p><p>Where I must be the sunshine and the rain</p><p><br/></p><p>Where I become the girl I should have mourned</p><p>I choose me now, trembling and afraid and whole</p><p>Not because it's easy but because I must survive</p><p>Not because I'm certain but bec</p><p>ause I've sold my soul</p><p><br/></p><p>For far too long to someone who won't help me feel alive</p><p>And today I'm digging up the parts of me I stole</p><p><br/></p>
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