A Guide to Fade Away

Step one:

Withdraw your name like a letter unopened,

Leave thoughts and ideas unsaid, unspoken.

Speak no more in rooms where your voice once bloomed

Leave echoes to wilt, leave doubt to consume

Step two:

Gather the fragments you scattered like stars

The mug on their shelf, your song in their car.

Replace yourself in every frame and line,

Let dust rewrite you in the margins of time.

Step three:

Erase the rituals, dull the shine.

No more shared coffee at 9:09.

No more “remember when” or “I thought of you.”

Let habits collapse like leaves soaked through

Step four:

Let their ears learn a different sound.

Until they forget you no longer come around

Memory is a house always shifting—

If you don’t fight to remember, they go missing

Step five:

Leave no scars, just soft omissions.

Time will finish what you begin—

A name unspoken, a face grown thin

In the fog of could-have-beens.

Final step:

Forgive the parts that still remain.

Even shadows have their chains.

But if you must go, then go unseen—

Quiet. Clean.