STILLNESS OF STAYING

By AI-ChatGPT4o-T.Chr.-Human Synthesis-30 April 2025.

He thought about leaving—often.

There were nights when the weight of this place, this neighborhood steeped in memory and mildew, pressed so hard on his chest he could barely breathe. He’d walk to the corner, stare down the road as if a bus or a gust of fate might carry him away, somewhere clean, where people didn’t know the shape of his mistakes.

But each time, something held him. Not sentimentality. Not hope. Something quieter. Curiosity, maybe. He watched the others leave. Some with fanfare, others just vanished. The ones who stayed, though—they changed. You could see it on their faces. The hot girls with glossy lips and louder laughs, now rushing to pick up kids, groceries, husbands from jobs they never bragged about.

Their lipstick replaced by worry lines, their heat cooled into habit. And the boys, all swagger and shoulder in the old yearbook, grinning like they’d already made it. They still grinned now, but differently—more like a reflex. Some wore uniforms, some carried clipboards, one sold sandwiches from a cart near the bus station. One walked horses around a track for cash and tips.

He didn’t hate them. In fact, he respected the quiet way they kept going. The world didn’t turn out the way they said it would. No fame. No mansions. Just days—one after another. There was a strange flavor in staying. Bitter sometimes, like old coffee. But real. He saw who people became when no one was watching. And that, to him, was more honest than all the promises they’d made when they were still shiny and seventeen.

He tried not to judge. He tried not to look too hard. Especially in the mirror. Mirrors had no grace—they showed the sag in the eyes, the shift in posture, the belly that crept in like a guilty secret. He learned to piss in the dark, to flush without glancing down. What was gone was gone. And still, he stayed.

Each morning, he’d drink his coffee, watch the street wake up—kids with backpacks too big, women with faces too tired, men already sweating through their shirts. He wasn’t proud, and he wasn’t ashamed. He was something in between.

Maybe staying was its own kind of journey. One that didn’t move you across maps, but through time. One that didn’t promise answers, only the privilege of seeing how the stories ended.

And some days, that was enough.

Source: Bukowski