to the child I will never have

I did not turn away from you.
I turned toward the life that was still asking me to stay.

I am ambitious.
I move forward.
I imagine futures and try to make them real.
I believe life should widen with care, not shrink under it.

I wanted you.
I say that plainly.
I wanted you

but wanting does not guarantee support.
wanting does not make time stretch,
or money appear,
or weight divide itself in two

bringing you into this world would have meant doing it alone—
not just alone in name,
but alone in practice:
one body, one income, one mind carrying everything

and the world would have watched
and called that choice.

I could have continued.
I could have endured
but endurance is not the same as living,
and survival is not the same as justice,

there was no we,
no shared morning,
no shared night,
no shared responsibility for what would follow,
only I, standing where support should have been,

the decision arrived quietly…
wrapped in morality and inevitability:
proceed and accept disappearance,
or stop before losing yourself entirely.

this was never about love
the question was what kinds of lives are allowed to go on…

I wanted both—
a life carried forward,
and a self that remained intact
care that was shared
dreams that did not have to be buried to make room

so hear this not as confession,
but as record
not as regret
but as evidence

this is what happens
when care is privatized,
when responsibility is optional,
when the burden of continuation is placed on one body
and called freedom.

You were wanted.
I chose myself because there was no we—

and until the world learns how to hold care without punishment,
how to make partnership real,
how to stop mistaking sacrifice for virtue—
this will keep happening

quietly,
endlessly,
by design.