You say you want to leave —
as if departure
was defiance
and not
self-flagellation
measured into moderation.
You dreamed of lunar valleys.
I’ve been there, love.
They’re building condos there now —
furnished with imported silence,
collapsible walls,
and rented intimacies of shared bodies.
You speak of gentleness surviving.
But gentleness died
when self-care became
another pimped out "art"
for the entitled lot
who hoard self-help like merchandise
and empathy
started charging per hour.
You hate it here?
Guess what? We all do.
This place stinks
of insufferable idiots selling grief
in digestible captions,
of lovers who ghost you
but only after stealing your metaphors.
No mid-sized hopes.
No small-town fears.
Just cities that scream your name wrong
and therapists who baptise your trauma
so it fits their workbook.
But leaving isn’t resistance.
Staying is.
Revolutions are messy.
But then, so is healing
especially when you’re not photogenic about it.
You hate it here?
Good.
It means the anesthesia hasn’t worked.
Now write.
Stay.
Scream so loudly in syllables
that the city hears its own violence and flinches.
No one leaves without bleeding.
But some of us
learn to ink from the wound
until paper becomes bone
and language,
our most functional scar.
