Slipping Away

It would take nothing.

A breath withheld, a step unmarked, a silence unbroken.

The world would not notice at first—

the chair still warm, the cup still half-full,

the echo of laughter still hanging in the air.

Ease lies in the edges,

where presence thins and dissolves into shadow.

No rupture, no spectacle,

only the faintest severance,

like a thread pulled loose from the weave.

And yet—

the weight of that thread,

the ache of its absence,

would ripple outward.

A mother’s hand reaching for a phantom,

a friend’s voice calling into the hollow,

a child’s eyes searching for a shape that is gone.

To slip away is simple.

To remain is the harder ritual:

to bear the heaviness of being seen,

to carry the burden of breath,

to let the silence break into sound again.

It is easy to imagine vanishing.

It is harder to stay,

to root into the soil of this moment,

to let the thread hold,

to let the weave endure.

And so the verdict stands:

slipping away is ease,

staying is defiance.

Choose ease, and dissolve.

Choose defiance, and endure.