I live because other people want me to

I live because other people want me to
their hopes a thread, their voices a quiet tether,
holding me here when my own hands grow weak.
Some days, the weight feels borrowed,
like my breath belongs more to them than to me.

But in the stillness, a spark whispers—
what if life is more than obligation,
more than standing in the shadows of expectation?
What if beneath the heaviness
there waits a reason of my own,
a rhythm only I can dance to?

I live because they ask it of me—
but perhaps one day I will live
because I choose to,
because I find in the morning light
a fragment worth keeping,
a melody that answers back,
soft and steady,
my own.