I daydream about softness the way some people pray. Soft hands. A soft life. A morning that doesn’t begin with violence already waiting for me to step outside.
I want a world where I don’t leave the house with my will on the table,where goodbye isn’t heavy with the possibility of finality.
No more squeezing my mother too tightly, no more kissing her forehead and wondering if this is the last time my lips will ever know the shape of her skin.
I am tired of leaving rooms mid-laughter,called away by emergencies that tilt lives toward the edge. Tired of nights spent awake bargainin with whatever god might still listen, begging for the safety of my chosen family.
I have been alone for most of my life, or at least it has felt that way. But with them the ache softens just a little.Even when the version of myself I bring into those rooms is one I despise, I belong somewhere.
And belonging is a powerful seduction.
When I was a child- small, terrified, and unseen, these were the hands that reached for me. The only ones. These were the arms I returned to when there was nowhere else to go.
And still, I know with a certainty that terrifies me: if I don’t leave now it will cost me my life.
There is a part of me that wants to burn brightly at the end— to go out in a blaze of glory, to have my name carved into walls and memory, to let my true name mean something for once.
But there is another truth I barely let myself speak: I want love more than I want legend. And I feel so ashamed of that.
I want peaceful mornings. Coffee cooling on the counter. Her hands in my hair like an anchor, like permission to stay. I want to learn what real love looks like—not the desperate imitations I’ve chased, mistaking intensity for devotion.
I want to build a space where every part of me is allowed to exist.I want to fall into something healthy for the first time without mistaking fear for chemistry.
I want a small farm and slow mornings. Adventure and travel. A life where my time is given freely, not sold for survival. I want to volunteer, to create, to wander, to rest.
I want the life I was never brave enough to claim. The one I told myself I didn’t deserve.
And leaving means mourning what saved me,even as I step toward what might finally let me live.
