some things you can’t say to anyone but your bedroom ceiling.

I think a lot about the conversations I would want to have if I saw you again. I think a lot about the things I’d want to tell you.

I’d want to tell you that I miss you so much that it hurts sometimes. I’d want to tell you that I think about you most at night when no one but me can hear the way my breath shakes every time the thought hits that I’ve spent another day without you. Sometimes I think I’m just lonely and sometimes I want to scream because I don’t think I’ll ever love someone the way that I loved you. Sometimes I’m not sure I want to.

I’d want to tell you that I’m sorry that we made so many promises to each other in the light when we never knew if we could make it through the dark. I guess we couldn’t, and I’m sorry for that too. I’m sorry everything fell apart and I’m sorry that it blindsided me so much that I couldn’t see the idea of us lasting but God, I was so scared. You were everything to me and I didn’t know how to handle loving someone so much that every morning felt like a sigh of relief from the loneliness the days used to be. I really tried to give you the world, but it turns out I didn’t even have any skies to give after you stole my heart. Turns out I didn’t even need to give you anything spinning on an axis, because she gave you a whole universe.

I was so sure that you were mine, so sure that I had you and that it was stuck in the concrete and flattened to the permanence of the sidewalk. I was so sure that I never even considered how wrapped around you I was, or how easily you had me sitting in your palm. It never occurred to me that you’d need somebody else’s love, because I was so sure mine was enough to fill the weight of my heart against your sleeve.

I think a lot about the things I’d tell you if I saw you now, but I don’t think I’d get a word in edge wise over the sound of my heart cracking all over again. I’ve never been good at letting go of things, but I swear it would’ve been easier to rip my own heart out than see you love her the way I loved you.

 – excerpt from a book I’ll never write