It didn’t arrive as a thief—
not at first.
It came dressed as warmth,
as laughter in a glass,
as something to take the edge off
the sharp corners of the day.
I thought I was choosing it.
I thought I was in charge.
But slowly—so slowly I barely felt it—
it began choosing for me.
It chose when I stayed and when I left.
It chose the words I couldn’t take back,
and the silences that followed.
It chose distance over closeness,
numbness over truth.
It took my independence
one quiet compromise at a time—
until I no longer trusted myself
to stand without it.
It took my courage, too.
Not all at once—
just enough each day
that fear grew louder than hope,
and I shrank from the life
I once walked toward.
It took my kindness,
softened it into something blurred and brittle.
Love became inconsistent,
a flicker instead of a flame—
present one moment,
gone the next.
And the strangest part—
the cruellest trick—
was how it made my world smaller
while convincing me I was still living.
Rooms full of people,
laughter echoing off walls,
and still—
I was alone.
Alone in a crowd,
alone in my own skin,
watching life happen
from somewhere just outside myself.
It took and took
until there was almost nothing left
but the quiet question:
When did I stop being me?
And somewhere in that question—
faint, but still breathing—
was the first real choice
I’d made in a long time.
Annoymous
