I will be there. I will be there. I don’t want anyone I love to ever look into a crowd and not find me. I don’t want anyone to make a stupid joke just to keep from crying. I don’t want a laugh to be the cover for a wound I didn’t bother to see. I will not be too busy, too tired, too indifferent. I will show up — messy, flawed, late even — but I will show up.
Because I know what it feels like when someone doesn’t.
And maybe… maybe I haven’t always been who I wanted to be. Maybe I tried. God knows I tried. I was present — until I wasn’t. I gave everything — until I gave to myself. And when I finally chose me, just once, they vanished. The silence was loud. The absence was loud. And it was clear: I was only loved when I forgot myself.
But I won’t let that make me hard. I won’t let that teach me to disappear. I won’t abandon — not because I’m afraid of being left again, but because I know what it does. What it costs to sit with a hollow heart and wonder what made you unworthy of someone staying.
So even if the world burns behind me, I’ll stand there — arms open, heart breaking, voice steady — and say, “I’m here.”
Even if no one ever says it back.
Anggerik
