#sad text

People keep talking about what if and what could have been, and sometimes I let myself wonder: if I had that one-time access to a time machine, there’s one thing I would have done differently.

One thing I wish I could change, modify, adjust; whatever name makes it hurt less, just to relive it once more, the only regret I carry, and maybe be able to undo it.

But I don’t know if you’d want to do the same — if you’d care the way you once promised you would; I trusted you with my whole heart, and even now I don’t know if you could, if you could put your ego aside, look into my eyes, and mean it — without hidden intentions, without soft white lies.

I don’t know if you could change that one thing you did that hurt me the most.

Maybe not the whole reason, but enough of it, enough to tip the scale of our heartbreak: would you go back and change the thing I defended you for?

Sometimes I wonder if I jinxed us, if I was the one who bet too hard on our relationship being great, despite the flaws we both saw; I chose to look past them, to sail toward a foreign shore, believing we’d find land together.

I bid on us with my heart, and I lost it all. I never wanted you to take the fall, but my heart had already sunk — weighted down by more than I could carry.

I don’t blame you, I don’t blame me; and I don’t think either of us should live in shame — the shame we made from selfish moments, from the fractured parts of who we are.

A shame we placed on ourselves, convincing our souls to act on desire, knowing we wouldn’t be the same after our hearts collapsed.

And that collapse, it didn’t destroy us, it only damaged us; because together, we were stronger.

We did care.

Honestly, I don’t know where it went wrong: even though we know the facts, even though we know what happened, I still wonder — did we ever really listen without shutting down?