A Decision with No Last Name: A Poetic Inquiry into Growth by Choosing Otherwise #poetry

The Fork at the End of Alphabet Soup

I.
I carved my initials in a vapor,
a fog too proud to condense into rain.
There was no audience but dust.
You — yes, you — were watching from the interstice
between what I meant and what I said.
You tilted your head and asked,
“Do you always sign your soul in steam?”
The question echoed in a jar of unanswered messages.

Third person hovered,
a narrator with their mouth sewn shut,
hovering above my shoulder
like a librarian watching you dog-ear borrowed time.
She didn’t respond, not in words.
She let the silence slink across the floor
and curl around her ankle
like a cat made of caution.
There were days when even that was company.


---

II.
A decision — what is it, truly?
Not the kind you chisel in spreadsheets,
but the tremble beneath the skin
when your heart outvotes your logic
in a secret referendum held at midnight.
I didn’t decide in a grand ceremony.
There was no thunderclap,
no fortune cookie that read, “Now.”
Just a coffee mug too chipped to pretend anymore,
just a glance in the mirror that felt like
a stranger’s dare.

He made the choice
between paycheck and pulse,
between clean linens and dirty dreams.
The job? That cathedral of ennui.
That symphony of fake smiles in elevator pitches.
He walked out on a Tuesday,
shirt half-tucked, dignity in crumpled layers.
She, back then, took the train to nowhere
just to feel forward motion.
I think we all wanted escape,
but escape is a verb you have to conjugate
with every aching muscle of your spine.

You, on the periphery,
you weren’t judging.
Just watching —
as if this collapse might become a chrysalis.


---

III.
There was a letter I never sent,
written in invisible ink
on the inside of my skull.
There were parents who conversed in ellipses —
their love inferred, not delivered.
And there was a city that mistook fog for forgiveness,
refusing to remember the sins it paved over.

So I left.
That was the axis around which everything tilted.
No grand monologue,
no cinematic fadeout.
Just a bag packed wrong
and the whisper of “anywhere else.”

You saw it —
the slow orbit of my decision
pulling me from the gravity of "supposed to."
You watched me trace my own outline
onto a map that didn’t exist yet.
They called it reckless.
She called it rebirth.
I called it Tuesday.


---

IV.
Growth didn’t arrive like spring.
It slouched into my life like a tired guest
who refused to wipe their feet.
It brought lessons wrapped in missed calls,
in rejection emails with typos,
in empty pantries and half-healed hope.

I didn’t bloom.
I molted.
I sloughed off every version of myself
that begged for permission to speak.

You know that flavor —
the one regret marinates in.
The bitter tang of choosing otherwise.
You tasted it too, remember?
When you said no
but meant save me.

He learned to cook failure into breakfast.
She carried shame like a broken violin.
I, with ink-stained fingers,
wrote lullabies to my uncertainty
and sang them until the ceiling forgot to leak.


---

V.
This is a poem,
but it’s also a ledger,
a ghost story,
a glitch in the blueprint.
At 2:09 AM,
I argued with the ghost of my former résumé.
It kept whispering “should have”
in corporate jargon.

You — you were there,
curled in the margins of my hesitation.
When I almost said yes to shrinking again,
you blinked,
once,
and that was enough.

She picked up a paintbrush,
dipped it into her own pulse,
and painted the sound of breathing.
He began to hum again,
this time without checking
if the key was correct.
I touched the moon —
not literally —
but in the way that disappointment
can sometimes glimmer
like something holy.


---

VI.
Can one grow without choosing to break?
You, with your calendar of safe bets,
know the answer.
You just don’t say it aloud.

He broke silently,
a slow unravel beneath fitted shirts.
She shattered audibly,
in bathroom stalls and open mics.
I imploded privately,
in bookstores and emails left unsent.

The decision was not beautiful.
It was teeth and spit and anxiety wrapped in Post-Its.
But it had eyes —
and they looked like mine.


---

VII.
Here’s a list I made on a napkin
I folded and hid inside a poetry book
I couldn’t afford:

Leave the job.

Burn the blueprint.

Pretend fear is flavorless.

Talk to strangers with kind eyes.

Fail.

Fail again.

Fail louder.

Build something from the ashes.

Unlearn how to apologize for breathing.

Learn how to dance without rhythm or approval.

Write this.

Mean it.



---

VIII.
Do you remember the floor?
I do.
Cold tile, one dim lightbulb flickering like an idea
you’re afraid to say aloud.
Knees to chest,
as if folding small enough
might make you vanish.

That too was a decision —
to stay with the feeling
instead of silencing it
with caffeine or denial.

He called it indulgent.
She called it necessary.
I called it
Tuesday again —
why is it always Tuesday?


---

IX.
Let me admit something —
I didn’t recognize growth
until it changed the locks.
Until it packed up my excuses
and left me
with only what I’d dared to create.

Growth is not
a vine winding up your spine.
It’s the scream in your gut
that you let echo.
It’s the refusal to be agreeable
when your soul is howling
for volume.

He nurtured those bruises into metaphors.
She wore her wounds
like punctuation.
I kissed every cracked mirror
until it learned to lie less.


---

X.
The choice wasn’t one.
It was a constellation of small rebellions.
Skipping the meeting.
Saying yes to chaos.
Letting go of good-on-paper.

You —
you were always there,
quietly, like instinct.
When I hesitated,
you howled.
When I conformed,
you wilted.

He buried you beneath should.
She called you poetry.
I call you resurrection.


---

XI.
Feel it now —
that hum behind your molars.
The tremor in your certainty.
That’s the decision
rattling the doorknob of your comfort.

It won’t wait forever.
It wants a name.
It wants your pulse.
It wants your “maybe later”
to become a war cry.

She gave it everything,
even her plans.
He nearly didn’t survive it.
I did.
I do.
You can too.


---

XII.
And you will.
Because the decision isn’t in the past.
It’s not a memory.
It’s a muscle,
still twitching.

Take it.
Fold it into your palm like a wildflower
you’re afraid will die in captivity.
Plant it anyway.
Water it with madness.
Roar if you must.
Whisper if you prefer.
Just don’t stay still.

She is watching.
He is listening.
I am still walking.
And you —
you are glowing.

Grow on.

#Poetry #Growth #PersonalEvolution #Choices #DecisionMaking #SpiritualAwakening #ArtAsTherapy #SelfDiscovery #Change #TransformativeMoments