People think retreat is surrender.
They think to step back is to lose
To withhold the sword
is to be afraid.
But I have learned...
To not strike,
when you know you can,
Takes more strength
than anyone will ever understand.
I could have gone all out
I could have unsheathed every word,
Let truth spill like
arrows from my tongue,
Pierce the lies, the betrayals,
the silence.
I had every right to.
And still... I chose silence.
Why? Not because
I had nothing to say,
But because I knew
what my words could do
And I feared That this time,
he might not come
back from the edge.
You remember, don’t you?
The time he folded into himself,
Like a collapsing tent,
Suffocating under the weight
of his own pain.
He tried before.And I feared...
My defense would
be his undoing.
So I stepped back.
Not out of cowardice,
But out of compassion
laced with quiet grief.
They say silence is weakness.
But sometimes silence is a shield
Not for myself, But for
someone else's breaking.
I walked away with my voice
still burning in my chest,
Like unsaid prayers that
no altar could hold.
But I carried it, Because I knew
the cost of letting it fly.
So tell me, Isn’t it a form of love
To bleed quietly so
another doesn’t bleed out?
To lose the battle within
So someone else doesn’t
lose themselves entirely?
I didn’t retreat.
I protected.
Even if no one saw it.
Even if it broke me quietly.
