Welcome To The Quiet Chaos

The house is quiet

in the way wounds are quiet

after the screaming stops.

No flames now.

Just scorch marks

where love used to pace.

I touch what’s left

and my fingers come back black—

proof something here once burned.

I don’t miss you.

I miss the noise

that kept me from hearing myself rot.

Peace feels wrong at first.

Like standing in cold air

after surviving an explosion.

But my lungs work again.

My hands don’t shake.

My heart no longer begs to be bruised.

What we had wasn’t love—

it was fire pretending to be light.

And walking away

wasn’t loss.

It was evacuation.

It’s not your job to fix anyone.

Hope is not a skill set,

and love is not meant to be labor.

You can point out the wounds,

name the harm,

but if it keeps happening—

leave.

The first disrespect,

the first push and pull—

run.

You get one life.

Your job is safety.

Your job is peace.

I stayed too long waiting for change—

like pushing a snake up a hill

that only knows how to slide back down.

Some mountains aren’t yours to climb.

Rejection is redirection.

Observe it.

Acknowledge it.

And know—

it was never about you.

You chose the room

with no windows.

I followed the light

until it became air.

What ended

did not break me.

because you were already small.

You passed down pain

and called it power.

I grew anyway.

And the difference is this—

I healed what hurt me.

You chose to become it.

I stayed stuck

loving a version of you

that no longer lived anywhere.

Depression dressed it up as loyalty.

Memory called it hope.

You moved on.

I stayed circling

what I thought I lost.

But today I see it—

I wasn’t abandoned.

I was paused.

And now the past

has no grip on me.

I’m free

to leave the story

where it belongs.

(Trigger Warning might piss you off)

A warning, not a judgment.

If you idealize comfort

over courage,

money over meaning,

being chosen over becoming—

know the cost.

That life looks shiny

because it’s hollow.

Validation is rented.

Peace never moves in.

Open a book, not your legs.

Some paths buy applause.

Others build a spine.

Choose carefully—

one grows you,

the other keeps you small

and calls it love.

Then I saw you

living the future

I postponed.

Nothing was taken.

Something ended.

when you lean in,

shaking like it knows

what’s about to happen.

Your eyes land on me

and my heart starts running,

slamming against my ribs

like it’s trying to get to you first.

And when your voice says my name—

God,

my heart doesn’t just beat,

it takes flight.

but bled in shades of bruise and smoke.

I loved you anyway—

even when loving you

meant losing my own color.

Now everything reminds me

of what you touched

and never stayed.

The world pulls us in different directions,

but love does not loosen its grip.

Even when we let go of the moment,

we keep each other.

No matter where we stand,

some part of me

will always be reaching for you.