I didn’t let go all at once. I loosened
finger by finger, memory by memory,
until the ache no longer fit in my hands.
I stopped chasing echoes down hallways of what-ifs.
I stopped folding myself into shapes that made you comfortable.
Those shapes left me hollow.
It wasn’t dramatic. No slammed doors,
no final words carved in stone.
Just a breath. Deep, deliberate,
the kind that tastes like sky
after years underground.
I let go, not because I stopped caring,
but because I needed space to breathe beyond us.
And so I did. Not with fireworks,
but with footsteps soft, steady,
toward a life that no longer asked me to disappear.
