FOR ALL RIGHTEOUSNESS, THAT'S IT.
I returned the way people returnto places that once felt familiar—
not because they were warm,
but because they were known.
There are reasons that look like faith
when you say them out loud,
reasons that keep the peace
and make elders nod in approval.
I carried those reasons carefully.
When you asked what pulled me back,
I spoke around the truth,
letting silence answer
what words would only bruise.
Somewhere between your future
and my present,
I learned how to be company
without being chosen.
How to stay
without arriving.
There are days I feel paired,
and days I feel singular—
walking beside someone
while negotiating my own heart
in private.
If I seem distant,
it is not absence.
It is practice.
I am learning how to survive
without taking up too much space.
This is not a tragedy.
It is a quiet arrangement.
A lesson in how easily
duty can wear the face of love,
and how often
we mistake endurance
for devotion.
Poetry by Ogundu Christabel oluebube (Chrisie)
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Written on 2026-02-01 at 10:55
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