This is all I have - by Matthew Okibe

You spent thirty days in the center of my silence. You were there when the room was quiet, not because of a lack of things to say, but because the air was heavy with the cost of staying afloat. You saw the phone sit still on the table, a device for reading, for writing, for the labor of survival—not for the performance of "checking in." You saw that the only voices I answered were the ones that gave me life or the ones I owed a future to.Then the door closed, the distance grew, and suddenly, the person who watched me struggle began to demand a version of me that doesn't exist in a season of survival.<img alt="" src="/media/inline_insight_image/639605.png"/>The Hunger and the Pretty There is a specific kind of cruelty in being asked to "make it pretty" while you are literally starving.I was on a road that felt like it had no end, coming back from a place where I saw the world at its most jagged. I saw people—people who should have been kin—tearing at each other for scraps, for souvenirs, for things that shouldn't cost a limb to own. I saw the violence of desperation. I walked away from that chaos with the dust of the road in my throat and a hunger that wasn't just for food, but for peace.And in that moment, the demand was for a word. A text. A digital proof of life.Both of us were starving in that moment. But I was starving for a way home, and you were starving for an ego-stroke. It's hard to build a bridge of words when you are still looking for the ground beneath your feet.<img alt="" src="/media/inline_insight_image/639593.png" style="background-color: transparent;"/>The Weight of the LedgerTo love is to be willing to go broke. I understood that. I took on weights that weren't mine to carry because I wanted you to be whole. I moved money I didn't have, and I would have done it again.But it's a strange thing to be forgiven for the debt but crucified for the silence. You aren't angry that I am carrying a load that bends my back; you're angry that I'm not whistling a tune while I carry it.You started a path without a map, grew resentful when I didn't cheer a journey I wasn't told was happening. I was busy writing proposals to keep the roof over our heads, trying to turn "nothing" into "something" through a screen and a keyboard.<img alt="" src="/media/inline_insight_image/643390.png"/> The Truth of the HoldI wanted to be the man who shows up with a smile and a hundred stories. I wanted to be the one who calls just to hear your breath. But every morning, the first thing I taste is the math of survival. Every night, the last thing I see is the tally of what I still owe the world.When you speak to me now, I don't hear a partner; I hear a deadline. I hear another requirement. I hear a "more" that I simply do not have in the bank of my spirit.You saw the real me for a month. The tired me. The broke me. The one who uses AI and novels to escape an empty stomach. You knew that version of me was the truth. So why, now that there's a screen between us, do you expect a lie?I'm not holding back. I'm just holding on. And if you can't see the difference, then perhaps we are both just alone, together.<img src="/media/inline_insight_image/651277.png"/>

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