Requiem for a Held World

There was a time when the world was held.

We mistook it for strength.
We called it progress.
We believed it belonged to us.

We did not know we were being spared.

When mercy lingered, we called it delay.
When patience endured, we called it absence.
When restraint saved us from ourselves, we called it oppression.

We sharpened our judgments.
We thinned our compassion.
We trained our hearts to feel less — and called it wisdom.

And when the holding finally loosened,
we did not weep.

We stood taller.
We breathed easier.
We said the world had finally grown up.

Only later did we notice what had gone quiet.

The pause before violence.
The ache after cruelty.
The voice that once interrupted us.

It had not left in anger.
It had left in grief.

This was not abandonment without warning.
It was mercy, refused until it could no longer protect.

And so the world was given what it asked for:
to be alone with itself.

There are some who still mourn.
Not because judgment came,
but because mercy was spent on those who learned to despise it.

This is not a cry for escape.
It is a lament for what might have been.

If the end is near,
it is not because love failed —

but because it was answered, at last, with silence.

Nelg Yor