If You Go Before me. MissT. There’s a question that haunts you when you’ve loved someone who lives in a storm: What if they don’t make it?And what if you’re no longer there when it happens? I’ve asked myself that question too many times. Especially after walking away. Especially when the silence gets heavy. So I wrote this—for anyone who’s ever loved someone they couldn’t save. If You Go Before Me by MissT. If you go before me, not in age, not in time, but in spirit crushed under a storm I couldn’t calm, I will ache in the places love never left. I will scream in silence eyes dry but drowning, asking the sky what else I could’ve done besides everything. I will wonder if the softness I gave wasn’t soft enough.If the leaving I chose wasn’t loud enough to say:“I had to save myself too. But beneath the guilt that bites like frost, I’ll find this truth, buried but burning: You were never mine to fix.You were a wild, beautiful ache in a body that turned against you. And I…I was just the woman who lit a lantern for a while, until my own hands shook too hard to hold it. If you go before me—I’ll grieve, yes.But I won’t wear the blame like skin. I’ll love you still, from the shore where I had to stay while you drifted into the dark I couldn’t follow. Author’s Note: If you’ve ever loved someone with mental illness, and you’ve had to walk away to survive it—this is for you. Your heartbreak is real. Your guilt is misplaced. And your choice to live is not a betrayal. It’s courage.

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