What Remains
He didn’t fall apart all at once.
It happened slowly,
quietly,
in the kind of silence no one notices
until it’s too late.
He used to laugh without thinking about it.
Used to walk into a room
and feel like he belonged there.
But life has a way of taking pieces
without asking permission,
and he kept giving more
because that’s what men are taught to do.
Hold it together.
Carry on.
Don’t make a fuss.
Now he wakes with a heaviness
that doesn’t lift,
not even when the sun comes through the curtains.
He lies there wondering
how a man can be surrounded by people
and still feel like he’s disappearing
one unspoken ache at a time.
He tries to explain it to himself
but the words don’t come.
They sit in his throat
like stones he can’t swallow
and can’t spit out.
So he nods,
smiles,
says he’s fine,
and hopes no one sees
the way his hands shake
when he’s alone.
There are nights
when he sits on the floor
because the bed feels too big
and the world feels too small.
Nights when he presses his palms to his eyes
as if he could hold himself together
by force alone.
Nights when he wonders
how much of him is left
beneath the weight he never asked to carry.
He’s not weak.
He’s worn.
Worn from being the strong one.
Worn from being the quiet one.
Worn from being the man
who never lets himself break
even when breaking
is the only honest thing left.
And yet,
in the smallest corner of him,
something still flickers.
Not hope.
Not yet.
Just the faintest pulse
of a man who wants to come back
from the edge of himself.
A man who wants to be seen
before he fades completely.
That flicker is what remains.
The part of him
that refuses to die out,
even when everything else feels gone.
The part that whispers,
in the softest voice imaginable,
that he deserves more than survival.
He deserves to feel whole again.
And if anyone ever truly saw him
really saw him
they’d realise
he wasn’t asking for much.
Just a reason to stay.
Just a hand on his shoulder.
Just one moment
where he didn’t have to pretend
he wasn’t breaking.