I Went Quiet

Nobody tells you
that the hardest loss
isn’t the person,

it’s the version of you
who kept waiting.

The one who stayed open
on purpose.
Who believed consistency
was coming.
Who kept a light on
long after the house went quiet.

You don’t stop asking all at once.
You stop in stages.

First, you stop asking to be chosen.
Then you stop asking to be reassured.
Then one day you realize
you’ve stopped asking
to be held
where you learned
to hold yourself.

This is how strength happens.

Not from courage, but
from repetition.
From unanswered moments.
From learning that hope,
when left unattended,
learns to be careful.

You become capable.
Reliable.
Hard to disappoint
because you stopped expecting much.

People call this growth.

They don’t see
the tenderness it replaced.

I didn’t become strong.
I became unreachable.

Access kept costing me
pieces I couldn’t replace.

I learned where to stop offering.
Where silence was safer
than hope.

I went quiet to stay.