Where I Choose To Remain
If I ever find you at the end of everything,
I don’t think I’d ask for time to be kind to us
I’d ask for one more moment where the noise falls away
and it’s just your name sitting softly in my mouth.
like a voice the world didn’t deserve to hear clearly,
like something gentle learning how to exist in a loud place.
I don’t know if I believe in perfect love.
I’ve seen too many versions of it break mid-sentence.
But I believe in choosing someone anyway
even when certainty refuses to stay still.
And I choose you.
Not as a story that behaves,
not as a feeling that never changes shape
but as you are, in your becoming, in your doubt, in your fire, in your quiet.
I will learn the way your silences speak.
I will stop confusing distance with absence.
I will stop running from the moments where love asks to be understood instead of just felt.
And if I ever fail you,
I hope I don’t become someone who leaves you guessing.
I hope I become someone who returns
again, and again,
until returning feels like instinct, not apology.
you are not a metaphor I use to sound poetic.
you are the reason language slows down when I try to describe what stays.
So if I ever stand beside you where endings are supposed to mean something,
I won’t promise forever like it’s easy to say.
I’ll promise presence.
I’ll promise effort.
I’ll promise you won’t have to wonder where I went
when love becomes difficult to hold.
And if love ever feels like the world is ending again
I’ll still want you there.
not because everything is perfect,
but because even in collapse…
you are where I choose to remain.
Copyright © Tshepo Mokhele | Year Posted 2026
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