An Irish Goodbye

 An Irish Goodbye

I’ve no wish for death.
But I don’t crave life either.
At least not like this.
Not when it feels so hollow.

Love is the fuel behind every brick I lay.
Love not for myself,
but for them.
My mother, who’s carried storms in her chest and shoulders.
My brother, who sees more in me than I ever could—and always smiles when I do.
And for her—
the only one who looks at me like I’m whole,
even when I’m clearly breaking.

They are the ropes I cling to with my worn out knuckles.
Not to climb—
just to hold on.

I do as I do to distract.
I withdraw from life just to dull the silence that screams.
But I still smile so no one asks.

If I disappeared quietly,
the world would go on.
The sky would not darken and the clocks would not pause.
But they would cry.
And my dear mother would meet me sooner than she'd have to.
I'd kill her of heartbreak.
So I stay.

Not because I believe in better.
Not because I think healing waits around some corner.

But because—even if there's nothing else beyond this mortal life—
I’m certain guilt would still crawl
through endless corridors of emptiness and silence
and find its way to me.

Pain is no stranger to me,
and I’d rather carry every ounce 
than see it in their eyes.

I don’t matter much to myself.
I love, I give and I break myself into small comforts 
so others can rest.
I think I'm good at that.
Or maybe just averagely decent.

I’d rather splinter into a thousand shards—
silent, scattered—
than bear witness to them even cracking.

I proudly carry the weight of their sorrows, in silence,
bearing every shard of pain like armor—
a shield forged from my own self inflected fractures.

When alone, I find myself broken into tiny pieces.
But with them, I must summon the strength
To gather every last crumb—
So the cold cement holds as little of me as possible,
And they don’t trip and shatter too.

And in every splinter of myself,
there’s a quiet promise:

I will fracture endlessly,
if it means they never fall.

But I wonder what'll be left
When the ropes I've held onto
Suddenly break and I can't find one for myself.

What would happen if the time came when there'd be no one to notice
if I disappeared quietly?

I reckon I’d still stay.
Not out of strength, or will—
but because the silence after leaving
sounds colder
than the ache I’ve learned to live with, but who knows.

And so I sit in the dark,
not asking to be saved,
just wondering
if I’ll ever learn
how to stay
without a reason
outside myself.