myquietchaos

[myquietchaos]

In another universe, we make it.

You don’t vanish when it gets heavy. You don’t cage your heart and call it self-preservation. You don’t leave me wandering through silence, trying to decipher if love ever lived between your pauses.

In that universe, you choose me.

Without fear. Without retreat. Without letting distance be the reason love dies. You don’t shut down. You don’t drown in your responsibilities or silence your heart to stay safe. You look at me — really look — and you say, "This is terrifying, but I want it. I want you."

And I would’ve met you there.

God, I would’ve burned galaxies just to get to you. I would’ve crossed every mile with hope blistering in my chest. I would’ve waited — not in sorrow, but in certainty — because I’d know you were coming.

But we’re not in that universe, are we?

We’re here. In this one.

Where you read my message and say nothing.

Where I whisper softness into a void that never echoes back.

Where I stretch myself thin trying to understand a silence that feels louder than any goodbye.

Here, I carry your absence like a ghost.

I speak to the version of you I met in the quiet — the one who held me in his voice, who made me laugh like the stars were listening. The version who made me believe we had something rare. Something worth fighting for.

I don’t know how to stop loving you in a universe where you won’t let me in.

And still… I don’t want to close the door.

Because I remember your spark — and it felt like fate had carved a space in me for it. I remember the softness in your silences, the light beneath your deflection, the way your guard slipped when you thought I wasn’t looking. I remember the you I got to hold for just a moment, and I can’t unsee him.

Maybe you’re overwhelmed.

Maybe you’re scared.

Maybe you love me and just don’t know how to stand still in it.

But you’re letting me grieve you while you still exist.

Still out there.

Still watching.

Still silent.

And that silence?

It’s a slow bleed.

I’m not ready to let go.

But I’m crumbling in the waiting.

Because in another universe, you don’t stay quiet.

In another universe, you fight for this. For me.

In another universe, we get the timing right.

And love lives out loud.

But in this one?

I love you.

And you’re quiet.

And it’s that silence that’s starting to sound like the end.

[myquietchaos]

Dear Little Me,

You were six.

Small hands curled into fists, not to fight, but to brace. Big eyes trained on doorways, on shadows that moved too fast. You shouldn’t have known then that love can roar like thunder, that it can bruise a body, break a voice, tear through a home like a hurricane no one ever prepares for. But you did.

You saw your mother fold under the storm, and your heart—so pure, so wildly brave—decided your place was in the crossfire. You stepped between. You offered your body like a prayer: “hurt me instead.” You, a little girl, tried to bargain with violence using only love. You became a wall. A trembling, breakable wall.

Maybe it stopped him. Maybe it didn’t. What matters is that you believed it was your job to carry it. You wore silence like armor, learned to read the weather in a room before the door even closed. Smiled to calm the waters. Shrunk to stay safe. And called it strength.

I’m 38 now.

And I carry you still. You live in the corners of my chest, perched like a bird who never fully lands. I talk to you sometimes when the house is quiet, when the world feels a little too sharp. I try to keep you warm. I remind you: you were just a child. You were never supposed to carry that weight.

But this weekend, it happened again.

The storm came back. Not in memory. Not in dream. But here—real, sharp, present. And this time there was no mother to shield. No child to protect. The hands came down, and they landed on me. And you froze. I felt you. That old fear, that ancient flinch. But I didn’t freeze. I stood. I bled. I broke, maybe—but I did not disappear.

What shattered me even more was the silence that followed. Not from strangers, but from the one I loved most. Silence, deafening, consuming. Not even the soft question, “Are you okay?” And isn’t that a kind of violence, too? That void where love should be? That absence where comfort should live?

So here I am.

Sitting in the quiet aftermath. No one beside me. Just you—small and shaking—and me, holding the pieces. I rock you gently in the cradle of my heart. Tell you stories of oceans and light. Tell you this pain, too, will pass. That I’m here now. That I won’t let anyone touch you again.

And you know what, sweet girl? I have a daughter now.

She laughs with her whole belly, sings to the morning, trusts the world like it’s never let her down. And I swear—I swear with every cell in me—she will never feel what we felt. I will build a fortress of love around her. I will teach her that love never comes with fists. That safety is not a privilege but her birthright. That her body is hers, her joy is sacred, and her fear is always valid.

I am breaking this cycle with blood and bone and truth.

I am bleeding so she never has to.

I am healing so you, little one, can finally rest.

And maybe one day, when she asks about the scars she never saw, I’ll tell her about the girl who stepped into the fire—and the woman who carried her out.

You don’t have to be brave anymore.

You just have to be.

I’ve got you now.

I won’t let go.

With all the love we were owed,

Me