Couldn't Stay

Dedication
To the ones who couldn't stay
This is your voice.
The one that trembled in silence,
the one that ran instead of reaching back.
You were never heartless.
Just afraid.

Author's Note
Couldn't Stay is the mirror to During and After You.
Where the first book bled with grief and longing, this one confesses in trembling verses and quiet apologies, the truth of the one who walked away.
I wrote this not to justify the leaving but to explain the silence that followed it.
These poems are filled with guilt, fear, buried love and a desperate hope for forgiveness, not from the one left behind but from the self that couldn't stay.
If you've ever loved someone and still left
this is your redemption arc.
If you've ever been left and wondered "why?",
I hope this gives you peace.
Gem R Masawi

Introduction
He never spoke.
Not really.
In During and After You, I spilled everything: the pain, the anger, the healing.
But I always wondered: what if he had answered?
Couldn't Stay is my attempt to become the voice that left.
I had to imagine what it feels like to love deeply and still run.
To be terrified of being fully seen.
To leave someone glowing and whole and live with the ghost of that choice.
This book is not fiction.
It is a truth told through empathy.
And maybe, somewhere in these pages,
someone will see themselves clearly for the first time
whether they were the one who left
or the one left behind.