something that was once real with you still lives in my chest --
and nothing temporary has been able to replace it.
we built a life together,
a future we both let die,
and now i'm haunted by you.
it's almost time for me to move to your city,
a place where all the shared plans we made were supposed to become real,
and now i feel the silence between us growing louder.
having to grieve the version of me who once loved you was never on my bucket list.
but being alone has felt like punishment.
except every day after you has helped me choose myself a little more.
and i'll keep doing it until i no longer crave you.
i'll keep choosing myself until i no longer crave people who wouldn't dare to choose me back.

we've been through so much,
and i thought i was ready to lose you...
but now that it's really over i miss you more than ever.
our relationship was toxic but your presence was the only thing that comforted me.
i used to pray for you to change and to be better for me but i know deep down you won't that's why i had to leave you alone.
you begged me to stay but i looked away.
i regret my decision more right now,
but i know we're not meant to be and that's the ugly truth.
i'm angry at myself because i don't hold any love for you,
just memories of you,
that's why it all feels so heavy right now.
i know one day you will move on and be with someone who you're willing to change for.
i just hope i'm not there to witness it.

i hate the word love.
i hate it so much i say "i love you" meaninglessly now.
and i also hate being in love.
i loved once and it hurt.
i learned to un-love and how to lie in love.
but if only the world had held me back from what i'd eventually learn to hate,
maybe i'd give love another chance.
maybe i'd find that there is love that i can give to someone and it'd be sacred to them that they wouldn't discard it.
with old big hopes that no longer exist within me,
my heart has officially shut down.
and i like it better this way;
better off with myself.

sometimes i wonder how it feels like to love someone.
i loved someone once... and they stole my vulnerability.
ever since i completely shut that door... pushing love away.
now i'm just someone who lusts and i'm really good at it.
being lustful protects me from the truth.
i hate being lustful but i can't help it... i can't stop now.
i'm too good at it.
i'm too good at lying.
i'm too good at pretending to be somebody i'm not.
and they love it too; all the men who see my naked body, my sweet face, and listen to my kind and almost truth telling-like sweet words.
how could i give that up?
being lustful is my image.
my legacy

sometimes i miss you so much my heart feels like it's bound to burst.
i would've never been able to predict that you would be the one that got away.
i can't accept that we aren't meant for each other.
i know we belong to other people...
but who am i if i don't get to have you?
you're the only one i could ever love.

you shifted the situation that whenever i spoke to you all you felt was such formidable hurt.
you chose silence over vulnerability,
and i don't blame you.
the unrequited love i receive from you has shaped me to realize how incapable you are of loving me.
it cost me my authenticity.
the feeling of wanting to speak but then having to consider the hurt that would come with it...
i chose to quietly surrender to loneliness.
and i'd rather do that a hundred more times if it meant i wouldn't have to keep filling my own wounds with even more heartache.

i wish i never met you.
it's not because you hurt me,
but because loving you has been the most
silent, isolating and lonely kind of suffering i've ever experienced with anyone.
if i had known from the start that my heart would end up aching for someone who could never be mine,
i would have turned away before it was too late.
where am i to store all this heartache?
i have spent so many nights wondering what it would feel like to be the one you chose.
and yet, despite everything, i still love you.
even though it hurts.
even though it's hopeless.
if loving you meant hurting like this,
then i hope i never learn to love again.
i should've known you were never mine to keep.