I'm tired, i'm sorry........

The Space I Carried

TW; SUICIDE

My Claire,

I didn’t plan to love you.
I was already leaving when you appeared.

I had measured my life in endings before I learned the sound of your voice,
before your presence complicated my certainty,
before staying became something I had to negotiate with myself.

You were never not enough.
You were enough to make me pause.
Enough to make me wonder if exhaustion could be reasoned with.
Enough to make leaving feel like something I had to explain.

I stayed longer than I meant to because of you.
Not because you saved me, but because

you softened the days.
You made the weight bearable, not removable.
And that matters more than you know.

When you think of me,
don’t think of the leaving first.

Think of the time I let the sunset spill across your face,
how I stayed a little longer in that light than I had planned,
because for once, being here didn’t hurt as much.

Remember how we laughed at nothing,
how your voice tangled with mine until I forgot the hours I’d been carrying.
How I pressed closer in the dark,
not because I could stay forever,
but because I wanted a few more moments before I had to go.

Think of how we ran through the streets in the rain,
how soaked we were we could barely hear ourselves,
how I let my chest lift with yours,
just for a while, just for you.

Remember the quiet afternoons,
the coffee I spilled and you pretended it didn’t matter,
the way your hand brushed mine and I held it a second too long.
That was me, fully alive for the briefest time.

Those moments mattered.
They weren’t borrowed.
They didn’t disappear just because I did.

Hold those.
Let them be warm.
Let them be enough to remember me by.

I don’t want you to hold my hand,
for the first time since I met you,
because this isn’t somewhere I wish you could follow.

I don’t want your love to become another thing that hurts you.
I don’t want my leaving to live in your body like a question you keep replaying.
This part has to be mine alone.

Did you notice how tired I was even when I laughed?
How my joy always arrived carefully, like it knew it couldn’t stay long?
I loved you honestly, but I loved you with a clock ticking somewhere behind my ribs.

I feel guilty.
Only a little.
Enough to ache, not enough to turn back.

Please understand, I am not choosing absence over you.
I am choosing rest over the endless labor of staying.
I am choosing silence over the noise that never stopped inside me.

If I had met you earlier, would this have changed?
If I wasn’t already so hollow, would love have been enough to keep me?
Or was I always meant to pass through your life briefly, gently, and leave this mark?

Remember me without anger.
Remember me without searching for where you failed.
You didn’t.

You gave me something beautiful,
a reason to hesitate,
a reason to stay longer than I intended.

I am not brave.
I am finished.— Tobi

NOTE;

Suicide is not the answer, even when it feels like the only quiet left.
What you’re feeling matters, and it deserves to be heard, not buried.
You don’t have to have the right words, or a clear explanation, or a plan.
You just have to show up as you are.

If you’re tired, confused, hurting, or overwhelmed, you don’t have to face it alone.
You can talk to me. I will listen without judgment, without rushing you, without trying to fix you.

You are not weak for struggling.
You are not a burden for needing someone.
Staying is hard, but you don’t have to stay alone.

Please reach out. I’m here. This is not for clout. it’s a genuine invitation.

— Yvonne (ink &echo)