Elegy for the Person I Almost Became

I light this candle for you,

you who chose another path.

You who linger in the margins of my decisions,

a constellation of could-have-beens,

still glowing faintly above me.

I. To the One Who Stayed

You remained in the hometown I abandoned.

You kept walking the same familiar streets,

waving to neighbors who still knew your name.

You grew roots instead of wings.

I wonder—

are you happier for it?

Do you sleep better at night,

your dreams watered by familiarity

instead of exile?

Or do you still glance out the window,

aching for roads untraveled?

I mourn you for the comfort you found

that I forfeited.

II. To the One Who Dared

You said yes where I faltered.

You leapt into the fire of possibility

while I stood trembling on the edge.

I imagine you now,

burned but brighter,

your scars glowing like medals.

Did you succeed where I shrank back?

Did the risk break you open—

or break you apart?

Either way,

you lived a fiercer life than mine.

I mourn you for your bravery,

and for the worlds I never touched.

III. To the One Who Loved Differently

You stayed with them—

the one I let go,

the one I could not carry.

In your arms,

they grew old beside you.

You shared morning coffee,

you built a family,

you learned how to stay.

I sometimes feel the warmth of your hearth

in the hollow of my chest,

as if a fire burns in a house

I will never enter.

I mourn you for the tenderness you nurtured,

for the faces I will never know,

for the love I abandoned

to keep breathing.

IV. To the One Who Wrote

You filled the notebooks I left blank.

You finished every sentence,

every story.

The shelves of your study bend under the weight of words,

while mine still wait in silence.

Did you find freedom in ink?

Did you lose yourself in worlds

that would never let you go?

Sometimes I hear your voice

echoing through unwritten pages,

a ghost whispering the lines

I never dared to inscribe.

I mourn you for the books the world will never read.

V. To the One Who Chose Peace

You refused the fight.

You laid down your weapons

before the battle even began.

You chose a quiet life,

the steady rhythm of gentle days.

I picture you sitting by a river,

watching the water carry time without struggle.

I envy you, sometimes—

your serenity,

your release.

I mourn you for the calm I will never know.

VI. To the One Who Might Have Broken

Not all of you lived long.

Some of you perished in alleys of despair,

lost to choices I narrowly refused.

I see you too—

collapsed on tiled bathroom floors,

veins emptied of light,

lungs drowned in silence.

I mourn you with tears,

but also with gratitude.

Your death taught me to keep walking.

Your absence carved a space for my survival.

VII. The Chorus of Selves

You are all with me.

The one who stayed.

The one who dared.

The one who loved differently.

The one who wrote.

The one who chose peace.

The one who broke.

You walk beside me like shadows,

whispering the lines of a script

I never performed.

Every choice I make

is also a burial.

Every door I close

is a ghost waiting on the other side.

VIII. The Benediction

And so I light not one candle,

but many.

An altar for the selves I lost,

a vigil for the lives I never lived.

This elegy is for you,

parallel selves,

alternate hearts.

Rest gently.

You are not forgotten.

I carry you still—

in marrow,

in breath,

in silence.

And when I leave this world,

perhaps we will meet again—

not as almosts,

but as one.