15. Yet
- Aug 16
- 2 min read
They say when a woman leaves,
her body is the last to go.
The grieving starts slow,
like mist threading through a forest,
One soft ache, then another,
until every breath feels borrowed.
And I’ve been leaving slowly,
without meaning to.
I keep telling myself I’ll find a way to stay.
But I don’t know how to stay.
And I don’t know how to leave.
I’ve been mourning you in fragments,
holding pieces of you like splinters,
trying to make sense of the ache.
But the ache is constant,
a pulse that keeps whispering:
I don’t know how to leave.
But I don’t know how to stay.
You did nothing wrong.
You are only yourself.
Kind. Steady. Real.
Maybe that’s why it hurts,
to find something true,
only to feel it unravel in my hands.
You taught me to love without armor,
to let tenderness bleed into every word.
You made me believe I could be gentle
and still be whole.
But this love is relentless,
a hunger that never quiets.
I reach for you, but the more I grasp,
the more I am emptied.
I’ve been twisting myself to fit,
shrinking my hunger into something small,
something you could hold.
But it spills over,
devours what little I can keep.
I built a home out of the ache,
taught myself to live on scraps,
because even the scraps were you.
Told myself it was enough.
But the truth is, it never was.
I don’t know how to leave.
But I don’t know how to stay.
Every time I try to hold you,
I lose more of myself.
I keep pretending these fractures
are only cracks in the glass,
that I’m not splintering under the weight.
But I am.
I am.
I keep waiting for this love to cool,
for the fire to settle into something gentle.
But all I find is ash
and the jagged edge of longing.
I don’t know how to leave.
But I don’t know how to stay.
I tell myself I can make this work,
that I can keep loving you without losing myself.
But I don’t know how to stop breaking.
I don’t know how to carry this ache
without letting it consume me.
Maybe that’s the lesson.
Maybe this hunger isn’t meant to be fed.
Maybe I wanted more than you could give,
more than anyone could.
I don’t know how to leave.
But I don’t know how to stay.
And I don’t know how to love you
without losing me.
The questions circle back,
never answered, never quiet.
How do I keep you without breaking?
How do I leave without tearing myself apart?
How do I love you without losing myself?
I can’t outrun them.
I can’t drown them out.
They press against my chest,
burning, echoing, demanding:
I don’t know how to leave.
But I don’t know how to stay.
I don’t know how to stay.
But I don’t know how to leave.
Yet.