Walking the Edge Of Silence

He walksthe edge of things,

not for thrill,

but because the center holds no welcome.

What was once a life

now drags like loose thread—

unraveling in silence,

no protest,

no plea.

Friends became ghosts

long before they left.

Family: a word

too large for the absence it holds.

He stopped trying to explain.

They stopped trying to care.

But the dogs—

two tired shadows at his feet—

still follow him through wind and winter.

They ask nothing.

They know everything.

Their breath keeps time

with the broken metronome of his heart.

He tells himself

he stays for them,

and it’s true.

He could not bear to vanish

while their eyes still search the door,

while their paws still trust the earth

to bring him back.

To leave them—

is to sentence the loyal

to bewilderment and slow hunger.

It would mark his soul

with a wound that no grave could close.

He would carry their pain

through whatever came next.

And he will not do that to them.

And the stories—

the ones that ache behind his ribs,

the ones that come in fragments,

half-formed,

sacred—

if he leaves before they’re set down,

if he lets them scatter

as dust on the wind,

they will not forgive him.

They will burn.

Not into ash,

but into him.

He will carry their fire

in his marrow,

an eternal blaze of almost-said

and never-told.

So he waits.

Not for redemption.

Not for rescue.

But for the right endings.

He will not go

while fur brushes his skin

and old eyes still seek his face.

He will not go

while words still pace the cage

of his chest.

But when the last paw stills,

and the final page is written—

when the dogs sleep,

and the stories find their names—

he will know.

And he will go,

not with rage,

not with sorrow,

but with the hush of one

who gave all he had

before the silence.

I know, I know, I know...

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