Almost Gone

I had begun to loosen my hands
from the things I once held tightly.
Not all at once.
Not with drama.
Not with some grand collapse
that people could point to and name.
It was quieter than that.
A message left unanswered.
A song turned off halfway through.
A morning met with nothing
but the dull ache of still being here.
I had grown tired
of being brave in rooms
where no one noticed the weight.
Tired of carrying iron
and calling it strength.
Tired of telling myself
that tomorrow might be kinder
when tomorrow kept arriving
with the same old teeth.
There comes a point
where giving up
doesn’t look like falling.
It looks like making tea.
Going to work.
Smiling when spoken to.
Letting the world continue
while something inside you
quietly sits down.
And I think
I was almost there.
Not gone.
Not broken beyond repair.
Just done.
Done proving.
Done hoping.
Done holding out my heart
like something anyone had ever
known how to keep safe.
Then you appeared.
Not like rescue.

Not like thunder.
Not like some answer
written across the sky.
You came softly.
A voice.
A laugh.
A kindness I did not know
what to do with.
And suddenly
the world did not feel fixed,
but it felt less final.
The dark did not leave,
but it moved over slightly.
There was room again.
Room for a message
to change the shape of a day.
Room for a smile
to reach places I thought
had gone numb for good.
Room for the dangerous thought
that maybe,
after everything,
I had not been foolish
for wanting love.
But hope is not simple
when trust has been broken.
It does not arrive clean.
It limps in.
It checks the exits.
It asks too many questions.
It flinches at silence.
It hears distance
where there may only be tiredness.
And maybe you are unsure too.
Maybe your heart
has its own locked rooms.
Maybe you are also standing
at the edge of something tender,
wondering whether to step forward
or protect what little is left.
So here we are.
Two people
trying not to run

from the thing we might want most.
Both carrying ghosts.
Both learning the shape
of each other’s fear.
And I cannot promise
I will always be easy.
Some days
my past will speak louder
than your kindness.
Some nights
I will mistake quiet
for leaving.
Some mornings
I will need to remind myself
that not everyone who holds me
is preparing to let go.
But still—
you make me want
to try.
And that is no small thing.
Because I was almost gone
from myself.
Almost finished
with the fight.
Almost ready
to call loneliness
a life.
Then you came close enough
for something in me
to lift its head.
Not healed.
Not whole.
Not certain.
But listening.
And maybe that is where hope begins.
Not in being sure.
Not in trusting without fear.
But in finding one person
who makes you whisper,
not yet.

I won’t give up
just yet.