the quiet exit of stars

please don’t tell me to leave you.
i have never known how to walk away
without first turning the entire sky over,
searching for a sign that maybe
it’s not yet time to go.

i stay.
not because i am bound,
but because i believe people are more
than their worst moments,
because silence sometimes screams louder
than any goodbye.

but say the word—
even whisper it,
and i will become a ghost
in the house we built from shared glances
and borrowed tomorrows.

don’t say you’re going to leave me,
because i have loved from the cliff’s edge before,
and this time,
i will jump before the earth shifts beneath me.

you won’t see me—not even my shadow.
not in the corners of memory,
not in the folds of your dreams,
not in the pause between songs
that once held my name.

i’ll forget you as deeply as i knew you—
as if your soul never warmed my hands,
as if i never traced your name
on the frost of my own breath.

i leave like the tide
that kisses every shore
but belongs to none.

and if you ever wonder where i went—
just remember:
those who vanish without warning
once stayed far too long in silence.