Even after the courtroom of voices,
after the daily verdicts
thrown against my name,
I stayed.
While criticism fell like rain
against thinning skin,
while doubt circled me
like vultures over something dying,
I stayed.
Because I knew the shape of leaving.
I knew how empty hallways breathe at night,
how silence can claw at the ribs,
how absence lingers
like smoke that never truly disappears.
They judged us
from windows they never looked beyond,
mistaking fragments for the whole story,
thinking shattered pieces
could explain an entire soul.
But you—
you met me in ruins.
Not polished,
not healed,
not glowing beneath soft light.
You met me where the walls collapsed,
where grief slept beside me,
where I barely recognized myself.
And still, you entered gently.
Still, you stayed.
You loved my worst
before my best had learned how to exist.
The others only loved daylight.
When darkness crawled closer,
they ran from its teeth.
But you sat beside the shadows with me,
unafraid of their names.
So I stayed.
Because no one else
could hold the weight of what we became.
No one else could survive
the storms hidden beneath our skin.
I stayed because behind closed doors,
there is only us.