Release Button

I’ve never been good at opening up. Not in person. Not with ease. Some people flow. I fumble. It’s not shyness, just a quiet fear of being too much, or worse, not enough. Insecurity, they call it. I wear it like skin.

But then there was her.

With her, I could speak freely. No rehearsals, no filters. She was my release button. Just a ping away, and suddenly the pressure inside had somewhere to go. A sigh, a meme, a long rant at 1:23 a.m... and she’d respond with three words or a silence that still felt like presence.

Then life happened. Or perhaps, un-life. The slow dissolve of connection, the fadeout of replies, that ghostly shift when someone crosses over, not into death, just a different timeline.

I can’t reach her anymore. Not truly. She’s in another dimension now, with brunches, new people, and unread messages.

Mine.

I tried to keep up. I sent texts, links, reels, a joke only she would get. And then another. And another.

Of course, the line went cold.

Who can endure such a monologue? No one signs up for being someone’s emotional drainpipe. I was broadcasting. She was exiting. And now, there’s no release. Just the backlog. The internal buffering.

Her chat has sunk low on my list. Not that I have a long list. Most threads are muted group chats, people sharing festival wishes, office jokes, a forwarded good morning sun. I’m just... present there. Not participating.

She was the only personal contact. The only one that mattered.

Now she’s buried in the scroll. A name I don’t even spot unless I search. Which I don’t.

I won’t.

She deserves peace. I wasn’t her responsibility. And it’s not like me to be a bother. So I’ve decided: she stays there. In the deep scroll. In the past. In whatever place she’s found that doesn’t include me.

I’ll stay here. With the pressure. With the slow-boil. Maybe I’ll get stronger. Maybe I’ll forget why I’m even pent up.

Maybe one day, if I ever find a new release, I’ll miss this ache.

Funny how the absence becomes the atmosphere.