Signs of Surrender

Teeth unbrushed. Photos untaken. Books abandoned. How surrender hides in plain sight.

Giving up wears many uniforms:
The sag of shoulders once held soldier-straight,
Closets full of clothes that hang like unanswered prayers.
The laugh that cracks too loud across the room
A chandelier swinging in an empty house.

It’s the job you keep like a life sentence,
Soul bleeding into spreadsheets by 9 AM.
It’s the bed shared with a ghost who steals your breath,
Dreams folded small and shelved like old receipts.
Functional? Always.
Alive? Only on paper.

Some bury hearts at twenty-five,
Then walk decades signing emails “Best regards”
Pulse flatlining behind a polished emoji.
Some sprint marathons toward no finish line,
Feet pounding pavement to mute the silence gnawing at their heels.

Photos stop.
Light feels like a lie now.
Music bleeds minor keys.
Songs that salt the wound.
Books left splayed like roadkill,
spines cracked mid-sentence.
Teeth unbrushed till noon
staring at a face that feels on loan.

Don’t mistake motion for meaning.
Don’t confuse endurance for escape.
Numbness isn’t peace
It’s anesthesia for a surgery that never comes.

The bravest drown daily in plain sight:
Pouring coffee, paying rent,
Holding doors for strangers,
While inside, a cathedral of hope collapses.
They ache and still show up.
They vanish and are seen.

This is how the world ends:
not in fire or flood,
but in the silent click of a lock
turned from within.