I think I am done, not in the dramatic way doors slam or glasses shatter, but in the quiet way dust settles after everyone leaves the room and the echo finally gets tired of hearing itself. I say it while staring at a wall that has heard every promise I ever made and never once held me accountable for breaking them. The sentence feels unfinished, like a chair missing a leg, but I sit in it anyway and wait to fall.

I think I am done chasing versions of myself that only exist at 2 a.m., the ambitious ghost, the healed future, the man who knows exactly what to say and never says it too late. I am done apologizing to mirrors, done negotiating with mornings, done pretending exhaustion is a personality trait instead of a warning sign. Even my breath sounds relieved, like it has been carrying something heavy for miles.

I have tried to quit before. I quit love in lowercase letters, quit faith on weekdays, quit hope whenever it became inconvenient. I packed up my convictions in cardboard boxes labeled “maybe later” and stacked them in the corner of my chest. Sometimes I opened one just to make sure they were still breathing. They always were, stubborn as weeds.

I think I am done mistaking survival for success. Done clapping for myself just because I stayed standing. There is a difference between being alive and being present, and I have lived most of my life like a voicemail no one deletes. I keep replaying old messages, listening for a version of me that sounds convinced.

The world keeps asking what’s next, as if I owe it a sequel. As if stopping is a failure instead of a skill. I want to tell them I am not ending, I am pausing, like music between tracks when the silence is part of the art. I want to learn how to rest without guilt, how to be unfinished without feeling broken.

I think I am done bleeding for proof. Done turning pain into poetry just to make it respectable. Some wounds don’t want metaphors, they want time, and time has been knocking patiently while I kept writing excuses on the door.

If this is the end, it is a soft one. No fireworks, no funeral. Just a man setting down what he can no longer carry and realizing his hands still work, still open, still capable of holding something new. I think I am done, and for the first time, it doesn’t sound like giving up. It sounds like making room.

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