Vanish.

Pick a new name.
Soft and easy,
something that doesn’t echo too loudly
when the wind calls it.
Let it be ours alone.

Leave a trace for your family—
a letter tucked in a drawer,
a call once a year,
your voice saved in a message
that doesn’t say much,
just enough to mean:
I’m still breathing.

The money is safe.
Not the kind that draws attention,
just enough for land,
a place no one looks.
We’ll build a house out there
with our own hands,
wire the sky for power,
pull water from rain.
We’ll learn the quiet by heart.

One or two friends will know,
but they won’t say a word.
They’ll just nod
when the rest of the world wonders.

We’ll drive something old,
something that hums but doesn’t shout.
When the world starts falling apart
we’ll already be far from it,
watching the dust settle
from the edge of the trees.

We’ll visit our mothers
without knocking,
leave money and flowers on the porch
and a hug in the wind.
We’ll be stories
they half believe
and secretly hope are true.

There’ll be no doctors,
no forms,
no one who needs our names.
Only this
the garden, the firewood,
the warmth of a room built from choosing
each other.

And when the end comes,
we’ll let the earth take us
without stone,
without sound.
The flowers will remember.
That will be enough.