I hope everything gets better for all of us, I hope we all find the peace we’re looking for

That summer, we fought until we bled. The love we felt made everything worse. (It’s always worse when feelings are involved.) You couldn’t forgive me for the things I’d done, and I felt myself slowly degrading into an empty shell every time we spoke. This is why I ended things. Not because I stopped loving you. No, when I close my eyes, I still remember how it felt to kiss you. I still remember being in your arms. I still remember lying on your chest and kissing your face and holding your hand. I still remember going on walks - laughing at stupid things - making our own inside jokes. I’ll keep those references within me forever now. I’ll protect them with my heart. They were ours and now they are mine and yours separately. I want you to know that I miss you. Desperately. But that doesn’t negate the fact that I am bad for you. And because I am bad for you, you are also bad for me. I can’t stand to see you hurt. I can’t stand it at all. I can’t be the cause of all of that pain. It tears into everything that I am. So even though I miss you, I won’t say anything. And even though I know we won’t talk, I’ll still hope that you are well and, at the very back of my mind but at the front of my heart, I hope you find the kind of happiness that I couldn’t give you. I love you. I love you. I love you so much.

It’s been a while since I’ve felt an emptiness like this. If only for a fleeting moment, you filled a great and terrible void. You tamed me.

You don’t ever really let go, though. You don’t stop. You don’t stop hurting, you don’t stop loving. It doesn’t go away, you just keep living and eventually things get pushed into the background of your life so it’s not consuming you every day. And then one day you know you’re okay. It still hurts, you still miss that person. And yeah, you forget the details. The way she smelled, the way her mouth tasted, how her skin felt, the sound of her voice. It’s almost like a different life, a different person that loved her, was with her. But on a day-to-day level, you know you’re okay. Sort of.