It didn’t start as something I’d lose- just something small, something I’d use, a way to quiet what ran too loud, to stand apart from any crowd.
Something to take the edge off clean, to blur the parts I didn’t want seen, like dimming stars in a crowded sky so I wouldn’t have to ask why.
And for a while, it worked like that… a controlled drift, a practiced act, like I could step in, then step away, like I was still choosing every day.
Not all at once, not sharp or fast, just something tightening, meant to last, like gravity I didn’t name slowly pulling me the same.
It wasn’t chaos, wasn’t loud, I still stood straight, I passed, I vowed, still showed up, still played the part… but it had hold beneath the surface, quiet, constant, in the dark.
Because control isn’t what you show, it’s what you do when no one knows, and I knew it, every time I crossed that same, familiar line.
“This is the last”- I’d say it straight, then circle back like it was fate, like orbit locked in endless spin, always drifting back again.
That’s the part no one sees- not the fall, but the repeat, the way it settles, feels like space, like something you can’t displace.
Not one choice, not one clean break, just smaller ones I had to make, quiet refusals, day by day, pulling myself the other way.
Sitting still where I’d escape, feeling everything I’d reshape, the weight, the noise, the restless pull, learning how to stand there… full.
There were nights I thought I’d crash, like stars that burn before they fade, like something breaking what I made.
And that’s the line that matters now- not where I fell, not what, not how, just that I stayed when I could’ve gone, just that I held where I’d leaned on.
Because I don’t need it anymore… not to quiet, not to ignore, not to feel like I can breathe in something I can’t leave.
It’s still there, somewhere in space, a distant pull I recognize- but it doesn’t decide my place, it doesn’t move me anymore.
