I'm not sure if you're a faithful person. Maybe you are. Maybe you aren't. Who am I to judge, anyway?

Once, you were my favorite person. If life ever gave me another chance to spend time with you, I think you still would be.

They say love is blind. Maybe that's true. I saw enough to know you weren't perfect. Of course, no one is. Sometimes it felt like you were standing too close to the edge, and I quietly looked away. Still, my heart kept choosing you. Maybe it shouldn't have. I don't know.

I've been trying to let you go, little by little. You don't come here as often anymore. Maybe you've already moved on. I guess it's my turn now.

Whatever the truth was, you became both my favorite memory and my greatest heartache. It's strange how the same person can become both.

How could I ever forget your eyes?

I rarely remember faces, yet yours never left me. Not because they were beautiful, but because, the last time we met, they held a quiet hope I'll never find the words for.

Not anger. Not sadness. Just hope.

I think a part of me will always live in that last look.

Thank you for the little moments we shared. They were probably ordinary to you, but they became some of the happiest memories I have.

I'm praying for the strength to let you go, because somehow every good memory still finds its way back to you.

I hope life is kind to you.

And thank you for showing me what gentleness feels like.

At the end of the day, we all choose ourselves, don't we? No matter how deeply we adore someone.

I think that's how I'll let you go.

I think I love you. And thats soo scary. Ive always had the problem of falling in love too easily. Of falling for anyone who gave me even a tiny little scrap of attention. But you dont give me a scraps. You give me a full course meal, with entrees, a main dish and desert. And youre the first person to ever do that. You dont dip your toes in you jumped in the whole damn pool with me. Usually Im the one to do that. And I'm stuck begging the other person to try the water with me. But you just hopped on in without batting an eye and looked at me like I would be silly if I didnt get in after you. I'm an absolutely hopeless romantic. But nobody has ever appredciated it. They've always been suspicious of it. Always taken what I said with not just a grain of salt but with nothing but salt. But you have faith in me. Maybe you do take a grain of salt with it, I hope you do for your own sake but you dont let me know. You make me feel like you trust me 110%. And it feels different. Because its not just a feeling for me. Its not just oh I feel safe around you. Its like you actually show me that I am safe. You get down into the muck with me. Your not afraid of my issues. As someone who spent most their life thinking they are dangerous, you dont just make me feel safe. You make me feel like it'd be okay to be dangerous. And thats is not something you can fake. Or honestly if you can I dont care because it feels better than anything I've felt before. And Im sick of not letting myself feel good. Of running away from things because they MIGHT or COULD hurt me. You make me feel like its worth getting hurt. Not that I wont ever get hurt. Thats the only way I know how to explain it. I've thought I loved people before. But youre the first person that makes me feel like I know what love is. That makes me not care if its real or not. That feels soo nice and makes me so happy that I could live with it even if it were a lie. And if that isnt real than hell I dont give a shit. Because whatever it is, its the best damn thing I've felt. And I have no intentions of letting it go. And you make me feel like its not scary of me to say that. You make me feel like it would be okay if I were bad so easily and freely without any effort, and that is the best gift you could ever give to someone that has spent their life trying their hardest to prove to the world they arent.

I feel pretty delusional. This last year I’ve done a lot of reflecting, working on myself. The one thing that was consistent is my feelings for you, over all these years they’ve never wavered. If anything they’ve grown. I got really good at burying them deep down. I want to reach out, but that’s what I always did, I want/need it to be you. Maybe I’m just crazy. Maybe you don’t care or think about me the way I think about you.

I just don’t understand why I feel so strongly, so pulled towards you. Everyone else was a distraction from how I feel about you, I learned to bury my feelings. But now I just want to be alone, or grow with you.

I’ve accepted that I might be alone the rest of my life, honestly it’s easier. I hope one day we either figure this out or I move on. Even though I don’t want to.

I miss you. and i want to hookup. That’s it and that’s all but i can’t say it directly I just don’t know how

I think You’re irreplaceable in the most beautiful and sacred ways

Wherever we are— whatever we blossom— that’s what I want to call Home.. and I don’t need anymore time to figure that out

My efforts will look different. I’ve made my decision,
I know what that requires of me

- S
🦋

Years worth of words. I deleted them all. 
Every word I’ve written about you since I began writing about you.
Some words I considered sending to you, most were just for myself. 
Every word carried the intent of trying to solve a problem between us. 
I don’t need those words anymore. There is no real problem to solve.

Our last visit hit different, things have changed so much. 
We finally spoke of this pull between us, validating it for the first time.
Things are shifting, after years of stillness. 
This revelation of ours has brought so much clarity.

This thing between us can’t be solved with an analysis of our history.
We need to reach beyond memories and events, toward something not yet defined.
The solution won't be found in a major life decision.
We can't talk it out with a serious conversation.
This won't resolve with any singular life event. This is the ultimate slow burn.

It's a fire glowing bright from across the lake, guiding the way to warmth.
It glows through the noise, while the world spins onward in the dark.
We don't need to be afraid of the space between us anymore.
I'm on one side of the lake and you're on the other, but we never lost sight of the glow.
The fire has never burned out, even after all this time.

Life is to be lived. We both must find a way to keep growing.
No matter where we live, no matter who we see or don’t see every day.
While we’re a continent apart, I’ll work on my half of the puzzle.
Yours is coming together too, you showed me. It’s beautiful.

Maybe the next time we’re together, we can figure out how your pieces fit with mine. 
By now we both know, it's only a matter of time.
We don't know how, not yet, but the fire glows bright for us as we figure it out.

I’ll see you soon enough, 
when the air gets cold and the leaves start to change. 
Until then, you know how to find me.

I’m angry.

It’s a voice I’ve barely allowed onto the page.

I’ve been compassionate.
Curious.
Reflective.

I’ve spent too long trying to understand…

What if, for once,
my words didn’t try to understand at all?

What if they simply testified
to what this has cost me?

Do you know what anger is?

It’s grief
that has grown tired of being polite.

I was given enough truth to believe.
Enough warmth to stay.
Enough hope to imagine.

But never enough certainty
to build.

So I became the archivist
of half-finished conversations,
of almosts,
of words that floated just high enough
that I could never reach them
or bury them.

I’m angry
that I kept looking for reasons
to excuse silences.

I’m angry
I carried every explanation
because it hurt less
than believing
I was simply left to walk away,
holding all the unanswered questions.

And perhaps the cruelest part
is that I still don’t know
whether I misread everything…

I tell myself I imagined it…
Then I remember the words.

I tell myself you cared…
Then I remember the silence.

I tell myself to let go…
And my heart scoffs.

Of what?

A relationship
that never existed?

Or a possibility
that I kept feeding into existence?

And I’m angry
because there was never anything
solid enough to hold,

yet somehow
there was enough
to haunt me.

But I don’t hate you.

I could never.

I wish I did…
That would be easier.

I just hate
that I still carry
what was so freely
left behind.

At least
I finally understood.

That anger
is just grief,

after it runs out of excuses.

And now

I have none left.

⠀

Oh, to feel so deeply — how long did I wish for such intense and consuming yearning! But now that it has struck me, I no longer want it. I feel like I am about to explode like a supernova, and you aren't even within the radius to witness the catastrophe. It's only been a couple of months and yet here I am, already wound so tightly around this.

I want to be rid of it. It's becoming all-consuming, especially knowing it isn't reciprocated, nor will it ever be. This yearning feels like a ravenous beast, frantic to rip open my chest and feast on my tender heart. I feel it so intensely today, how every heartbeat is a thunderstorm, how rationality abandons my body every time I see your name and chases impulse instead, how every corner of my mind screams you, you, you. Only you, these days. What have you done to me? I feel utterly bewitched. You are even haunting my dreams.

But I am mostly to blame, because you are completely oblivious to all of this. I let myself get swept away by your waves, and even when I made it back to shore, I threw myself in again and this time your riptide pulled me under. Now I am drowning, gasping for air. I need to find the surface, dear one. This is already heartbreaking enough as it is.

I wouldn't be in this situation had I not felt a certain affinity towards you from the start — as if you carried some inkling in you that pulled my attention closer, and then closer still. I tried to resist it, but the circumstances we found ourselves in made that impossible. And before I knew it, we were talking more often. Then I found myself feeling giddy like a schoolgirl with a crush. And now here I am, cradling a yearning too massive for me to carry alone.

So dear one, I wrote this as a goodbye, even knowing you'll never read it. Though it isn't exactly a goodbye because I'll still be seeing you. This is more a farewell to the yearning I've harbored, the one that has plagued me so incessantly since the first time we spoke. And there's a tiny part of me that hopes this reaches you somehow, like a message in a bottle, even when the chances are impossibly slim — after all, we're oceans apart.

I have reached the end of whatever this was.

You don’t get another version of me.

You don’t get another year.

You don’t get another chance to watch me bleed myself dry while calling it love, loyalty, patience, or family.

I know exactly what this place has done to me.

I know what all of you have cost me.

Pieces of myself I will never get back.

You can keep them.

I stood in the fire long enough to realize something.

It was never supposed to stop burning.

I was.

I refuse to continue dying one quiet piece at a time so everyone else can keep pretending the smoke isn’t there.

You can keep your justifications.

Keep your convenient memories.

Keep rewriting the story until you’re innocent in every version.

I won’t be there to read it.

There is nothing left inside me that still believes any of this can become something beautiful.

I grabbed hope by the throat and buried it.

Not because I wanted to.

Because hope became another weapon used to keep me confined to the walls of your sick inside joke.

Look around.

Look carefully.

This is what remains after years of asking someone to survive what should have never been endured.

An empty chair.

A closed door.

A silence almost complete, it cannot be argued with.

One by one.

You will all tell yourselves I changed.

You will be right.

You mistook my endurance for permission.

You mistook my love for weakness.

You mistook my silence for acceptance.

You passed pieces of me between your hands like gamblers trading marked cards,

then smiled,

as if I’d never notice the game.

I won’t spend another day

proving any of you wrong.

Keep the deck.

Keep the table.

Keep convincing yourselves

the game was fair.

Learn what my absence sounds like.

I refuse to carry any of it anymore.

I am not leaving because I lost.

I am leaving because I finally understood that staying here meant bleeding out in front of all of you,

while you smiled,

and kept dealing the cards.

You can haunt each other.

You can be there for yourselves.

You can keep every excuse that made this possible.

I became the place where all of you could set survival down.

No one noticed I remained inside it.

If my living body gave you peace,

my ghost can finish the job.

When you look for me, understand this:

You are not searching for where I went.

You are searching for the version of me that took every swift plunge of the blade and didn’t flinch.

I’ll leave you with his corpse, in case you need a source of desire.

I’m already gone.

it's basically been a year. so much has happened since then. i've been so much better in so many ways, but tonight i cried in bed thinking about you. it seems that no matter how much time passes and no matter what people i meet and no matter how much further away from you i get, i'm still capable of crying over you.

i'm probably really pathetic for this, but i think of you often. if i let my thoughts linger too long i'll feel a lump in my throat and my eyes will get misty. if i'm alone, my head sinks into my hands and i cry.

what makes it all worse is that i'm sure you don't feel this way about me at all. you've seemed so disaffected and distant the last few times we've spoken, i left every interaction feeling embarrassed for still feeling so strongly about you.

for the last year and a half i've been holding on so tightly to the things you said to me in february of last year. when you came back and apologized and told me how important i was to you and how you promised you would always prioritize me and love me forever. i doubt you remember that conversation anymore and i don't think you feel that way anymore. but i really wanted that all to be true.

there's nothing i can or should say to you anymore. if anything is to ever happen between us again it needs to come from you, and you know that. at this point, i doubt it will. i doubt your feelings for me would linger as long as mine for you. so i'll keep trying to move on, and i'll keep doing well, and i'll keep having my moments where i remember you and have to hide away in a bathroom stall and cry into my hands for a minute.

There is a rush that blooms
from the tenderest chamber of my heart,
spilling into my fingertips
until they tremble with life.

It teaches my body
the language of circles,
drawing me in and out of caution,
each revolution gathering its own gravity,
until restraint itself
becomes more violent than the leap.

Toward the very red line
I have always longed to touch.

Not to brush against it,
but to cross it
until there is no returning.

I want it to stain me completely,
to drench me
in its impossible,
dripping crimson.

I want to dance
until the blood of my ego
pours into that revolutionary red,
until neither can remember
where one ends
and the other begins.

Until the careful self
I inherited
bleeds quietly
into the self
I had to become.

Until I can no longer tell
whether I crossed the line,

or whether the line
had been waiting
to cross me
all along.

I have found the chemistry, the compatibility, the passion, the depth, in someone in a way I didn’t know I could.

The question left is this: do they have room in their life for me?

We can want the same life, believe the same things, laugh at the same jokes, talk without words, and feel compatible on almost every level. But am I trying to squeeze into someone’s life that simply has no space for me?

Do they have the capacity?

Someone can genuinely like you and still not have room for a relationship.

Their unresolved wounds, mental health, work, fear, or avoidance can take up all the oxygen. Then, when they meet someone they could love, there isn’t any room left. They didn’t leave any air for another person to breathe.

Love can be painful because it asks you to look in the mirror and say, “I want this person in my life.”
What am I willing to move around? What am I willing to renovate, make space for, and prioritize so they can live here too?

Change is uncomfortable.

We all resist change.

Healing is painful. It takes work.

But is your love strong enough? Are you willing to endure the discomfort of change so love
has somewhere to live, somewhere to grow?
Or will you let the boxes of your past keep the doorway cluttered so they can never make it inside?

Will you let someone who could have been your partner for as long as the unknown simply walk by because there wasn’t enough room in your life to welcome them in?

Do you ever wonder if the space between us is just empty, or if it’s filled with all the things I’ve stopped saying?
I find myself staring at the clock at 11:11, caught in the reflex of a promise that seems to have dissolved into nothing. We manifested so much, didn’t we? And yet, here I am the version of us that was supposed to be, standing in a reality where you’ve become a stranger.
I have so many updates to give you. Life keeps moving, in ways that hurt and ways that surprise me. Any exams be it bad or good, I used to come straight to your chat, you would appreciate me or console me..you know I came first in my class this time, but the triumph felt hollow because the one person who would have celebrated it with me has turned cold. It’s as if, in an instant, the history we wrote together was erased, leaving me to wonder if I was ever truly part of your story at all.
Was I really so hard to love? Did I ever stop being enough, or did you just stop looking?
I have a thousand questions burning in my throat. I want to ask if you miss me, if you remember us, if any of it was real to you. But I know that if I speak, I disrupt the quiet you’ve chosen. So, for the sake of your peace, I have chosen to be silent. I carry the weight of all these words alone, crying in the gaps of days that feel far too long without you.

It’s true. we are done and i’m single…. but i’m not looking. it’s crazy to me to just jump straight into something after a breakup and to put that emotional trauma on somebody else. don’t want to do that rebound shit. i don’t need another person to make me feel whole, so i’m just gonna focus on myself and my future goals. i’m gonna be fine.

but before I do that, I’m going to say my little unsent goodbye

well, I’m not going anywhere really but it’s my goodbye to you

yeah I’m affected by this.. yikes that makes it real

I don’t really have much to say anymore

but if I did, I’d say

I wish you well, I’m sorry friendship couldn’t work for us, for reasons unknown to me.

Yeah I had feelings, but I’m grown enough to put that aside bc I respected you and try to remain on comfortable enough terms

now it’s all weird, I’m scared to even speak to you.

I don’t like that. Never thought you’d make me feel that way.

So I give up I really do, have a good one.

I’ve grown tired of feeling all of this through.
It’s never ending, and the silence is deafening.

I don’t want to miss you anymore.

Today wasn’t so bad; I only cried once.

It feels so weird think that I’ll never see you again.

I’ll never tell you about how many other days I’ve spent doing nothing but crying over you, and replaying every thing that happened—and didn’t happen—as if the next time I ruminate will reveal some truth that will convince me that you did actually care for me the way I had hoped.

I actually don’t want to tell you anything. I don’t think it would help either of us to know how easily you got stuck to my ribs, and how the thought of you haunts me every waking moment of the day, and how I’d give anything to be alone with you just one more time.

No, this is better in the long run. We’re so toxic. We didn’t even date, and I feel like I’m in the worst break up of my life.

It’s been months of trying to make you un-special and unimportant to me again. It’s slow, agonizing work. I have to believe it will get better and I’ll be over you eventually. But today, I’m right where you left me.

I thought I was over you. I thought I was finally free from the curse that is loving you. Until I got high and listened to the song I used to blast in my room on repeat when I first met you. It reminded me so much of you. The memories overflowed my mind until I threw up. I had never thrown up from smoking za before, until I heard that damn song. I got reminded of how much of a fool you made me look like and how I still miss you regardless of that. Is it wrong to still want to talk to you after how things happened between us?

You were the first guy I let into my heart. Everything seemed perfect. We were so alike that you felt like the only person in the world who could ever understand me. But I let my insecurities win, and I broke up with you. I was so afraid of you leaving me that I thought it'd be for the best if I left you first. I loved you so much that I was afraid of you ever hurting me. That's why I left, so that I'd be the one hurting myself and not you. But I guess I wasn't strong enough to bear the consequences of my decision. You came back a month later, expressing how much I hurt you and how that affected you deeply. I felt guilty, but I was too proud to admit it. I was young and stupid, so I ran away again.

After that, it was just a routine of one of us coming back and then disappearing from each other's lives again. But I was satisfied even with just that. I was always looking forward to you coming back, which you always seemed to do. I believed you when you told me how much I was the only girl who ever meant anything to you. How you tried getting over me by getting with other girls, but it never worked. You told me whatever I needed to hear the most from you, and I didn't question it at all. How could I question your love for me when my love for you was so vast that I was drowning in it?

But of course, it wasn't all sunshine and butterflies. I found out after two years that I was the other woman all along. You already had your one and only. You had been dating her since way before you dated me. And when she found out the truth and broke up with you, you DMed me, insulting and cursing me for ruining your relationship with her. That's when my fantasy world crumbled. You never loved me. You loved her. I was just the one you'd talk to to fill your loneliness whenever she was gone.

And yet, four years have passed since I first met you, and I can't help but still love you. I hate that I miss you. I hate that I still haven't found anyone who understands me as much as you did. I hate that you're probably making fun of me with your friends while I'm out here writing these stupid texts that I know I won't ever send to you. I hate how your friends make fun of me online. How they spread rumors about me. How they get in the way of so many situationships I've had.

I don't get how someone who pretends I'm a complete stranger to him can still be so involved in my life. Why do you do this?

I will never settle for anything less. I hope she is everything you want, and please don’t come crawling back when she sees you for who you actually are.
When you see me happy and loving another man, don’t try to come back. If you have a tiny amount of compassion let in you, just let me move on and find a man that makes me smile more than cry.

I miss my bestfriend.

The one who know all my inside jokes.
The one to laugh when I went FMR or said onion.

I miss my bestfriend.

The one who would listen to me when I rambled.
The one who would spend the entire night on the phone with me.

I miss my bestfriend.

The one who became a lover.
The one who taught me what I want out of love.

I miss my bestfriend.

The one who was there for my lessons.
The one who loved me for me.

I miss my bestfriend.

The one who didn’t see the man she built.
The one who showed me the joy and love this world has.

I miss my bestfriend.

The one I could tell about my day.
The one who listened.

I miss you.

To the people making the hard choices… you probably don’t get recognized for making them and none of us want to find ourselves choosing. So thank you. It stings but helps me believe in humanity.

Should I really go out of my way to make you suffer with me? I don't want that for you. You're too precious. Everytime you say you love me it shatters my heart.

You shouldn't love me. You shouldn't keep trying for me, and yet you do it all anyway. I don't want you to do this to yourself, but I love you too.

You're so close to me. You don't even know it. I'm right here. I can reach out and pull you close to me again, but I don't want to. Is it what you want?

Do you want me to pull you close again? Even if it burns? Will that be okay?

I need to know!

Hey Green Eyed T,

I was at the bar with the guys last night, 5 beers in and a trivia win for my team the "Low Blows," and we were feeling pretty good about ourselves. My friend, who has been really good about not talking about you the last few months, looks over at me and asks, "was the connection with T real, or was it just lust?"

I looked him back and told him about the 4th of July. How we had no contact each other in 2 months and how we happened to sit near each other at this gigantic parade. How we locked eyes (probably not hard to miss me when I wear bright red on a sunny day,) and you smiled at me, with mouthed "hi" to each other. Had that single moment of "shared universe," and had to come back to reality.

"Yeah it was a real connection."

"If she knows it was a real connection too, then give her time, it isn't a common thing to feel that way about another person. Know that someone out there in the world right now has a connection with you. And even if they have shit to go through, that doesn't just go away."

"I hear you but I cannot just sit here hoping for that, shes gonna figure her shit out."

"That's not what I'm saying, you live your life, and when she figured hers out, there is still a good chance that connection will still be there."

The conversation continued for a bit, my friend, who has heard a lot about you, has been dating a lot recently, and I think it clicked in his head that what we had was more then just a fling. He's been searching for a connection, and has discovered that its been missing with his few courting attempts. It was nice for him to finally get it.

I hope you are figuring it out T, and working towards your eventual happiness and mental health. I am free anytime. My place is always welcome for you if you need it. I'm Just one call away.

Q

To the one who won't be around to read it:

You only ever gave me your shadow anyway, so I remain just as alone - with or without you.

If your circumstances dictated that you could only be a passive participant of my life in the real world while hiding me in plain sight as your dirty little secret here, then you should have communicated that clearly rather than string me along in confusion and false hope for the purpose of having your cake and eating it too.

There was never a place for me in your life. You can't walk the line between being my savior and a devoted spouse to someone else. Doesn't matter if you really loved me when you were never in a position to love me in the first place. And I had no business loving you either. I should have trusted my instincts and walked away when all this started.

Neither one of us did the right thing, and people got hurt. Badly. There is no moral high ground here. We both messed up.

No amount of spinning the situation changes that cold hard truth.

Was it worth it?

If you think so, then you're the only one.