Why didn’t she leave?
the same arms
perpetually rowing
“I patched every crack,
I bailed every bucket.”
“I was the engine, rowing through the darkness,
pulling both our weight for all those years.”
“The water kept rising, and I stopped to catch my breath.
Looked across the deck and finally saw what I’d missed:”
“Then I saw your hands — not reaching for an oar,
but tearing out the patches as fast as I could seal.”
gravity
a force you can’t argue with
a belief you never questioned
“I thought survival meant…”
“But maybe gravity was only
a law I never questioned.”
letting go
giving up
freedom
“My empathy was the anchorthat held me to your side.”— but I was always free to let it go.”
the boat is going down
losing everything
a new beginning
“The boat is going down…
but I’m not swimming after it.”
“I changed the laws of gravity.”
“You can call my leaving anything you like.
But you cannot make me disappear
just because you never learned to see me.”
I will not.
Let you.
Erase me.