I gave myself to something vast,

Something that promised to matter,

It swallowed my hours, my thoughts,

And slowly, without me noticing,

It swallowed them too,

The ones who waited,

Who reached for me.

The pursuit was everything,

A fire that burned so bright,

I couldn’t see their faces dimming in the glow.

I told myself it was worth it,

I told myself they’d understand,

But I missed the silence growing thicker,

The laughter that no longer came.

By the time I looked up,

They were shadows,

Soft, distant echoes of what we had been,

I wanted to call them,

But the words tasted hollow,

Like an apology too late to heal.

So I let it go,

The thing I thought I needed,

I unbound myself from its weight,

And walked back to the edges of their world,

At first they didn’t see me,

Or maybe they didn’t trust I would stay.

But I stayed,

I listened when they didn’t speak,

I waited without expectation,

Letting the space fill with something that felt like hope.

They came back slowly,

Like dawn through fog,

And I learned finally,

That the brightest things are not the ones you chase,

They are the ones you let close.

The ones you let hold you.