I just want to love you again. I trace your name in my sighs through the night, a melody lost to time, hushed by regret, yet I still hum it through the pain. And I always will. The crisp air still smells like yesterday, carrying echoes of laughter clasped between our locked hands. Like the promises we swore would never break, only misplaced, leaving space where we once stood together. I don’t long for time to rewind; I want to love you now, with the lessons our mistakes have taught me. I hate these shackles on our hearts, the restraints that make even the smallest things feel fragile. I’ve fallen for you, and I fall again each time I try to stay away. I love it all, the good, the bad, even the fights that teach us something new. Even in our lowest moments, I still search for you. I can’t be just friends with you. I’m sorry, but I can’t compartmentalize this love. I don’t care about perfection; I care about presence, about loving you fully, no matter the effort it takes. And I always will, even if I’m not allowed to. From the sound of your voice to the hue of your presence, to every piece of you, I will always love you.

I write of love, my words soft as blooming flowers, outshining the silence. They drink from my verses, offering praise, yet never seeing through hollow eyes. They trace my ink with their pens, searching between the lines, yet always missing the rot woven into the rhymes. I only ever meant to heal, to imagine a world that would never falter. But as echoes tremble and shatter, the voices grow louder in my wake. Hearts lie broken along my path, split and bruised, marked by both my hands and the words I chose. The tales I spun, the dreams I wove, just layers of silk concealing the screams of the past. Each whispered line, each lullaby sung, was a betrayal wrapped in delicate deception. I thought I gave my all, shining bright, yet I only ever left them shattered and cold. A poet’s sin, unknowingly blind. Now, the weight of it all is too much to bear, even my own hand too heavy to hold. The ink thickens, choking the page, my verses darkened by buried rage. I once believed myself gentle, kind, a guiding light for even the quietest of minds. But I was blind to the wounds I inflicted, to the trust I fractured, left to wither in the dark. Each tear they shed, I was the reason why. I swore I loved, I swore I cared, yet I was the reason they were afraid. I was begged to change, yet failed to see where the cracks needed mending. Blind to the truth, I led them further away. And now, regret clings to me like a ghost, whispering of what could have been, of a future where things might have been okay. Every poet holds a secret, buried deep within their lines, whether the ink glows faint as a whisper or bleeds dark as sin.

This bed was made for two, yet it still feels empty without you. The sheets twist and tangle, much like the echoes of our laughter that once filled this space. These pillows, once cradling our heads, now hold only the ghosts of whispered secrets. Your warmth fades too quickly, replaced by a cold that lingers in silence and longing. Moonlight spills through the blinds, tracing the spot where your touch once rested. I find you in my dreams, but like the tide pulling away from the shore, our love slips beyond my grasp. This bed, meant for two, stretches wide and hollow, like a map of the moments we once traced upon it together. And no matter how deep I sink into the mattress, it will never feel full without your embrace.

And just like that, it feels like I’ve lost my best friend. No grand goodbye, no final stitch in the quilt of our time together, just emptiness where you once were. You’re not truly gone, just out of reach, yet everything we shared has slipped away. Every late-night game, every conversation about nothing and everything, just to hear your voice, now they’re only echoes, tainted by your absence. No game feels the same without the one I played it with. You taught me to grow, to love deeply, to mature. We built our own worlds, believing our love was endless, untouched by time. We laughed in the darkness, whispered lies in Salem, set towns ablaze. We ran for our lives, doing anything to save each other before daylight. We tamed beasts, explored new lands, built walls around our home. You mined, I crafted, together we created something that felt unbreakable. But even the strongest diamonds don’t last forever. We watched movies, tore through episodes of shows, filled the silence with laughter and jokes we never could keep to ourselves. But love is no armor, it’s no invincible shield. It shatters in hands that can’t bear the weight of pain. Now, I lie here, retracing our steps, searching for pieces of us in everything around me. I wake in the middle of the night, reaching for you, still lost in a dream. But this stuffed animal you gave me will never be you, and the silence will always be deafening. As quickly as you came, you were gone. Just like that, I’ve lost my lover.

I’m not okay with loving you from a distance, but maybe love was never meant to be held so close. Perhaps the purest form of love is knowing when to let go, before we unravel each other thread by thread. Maybe the space between us will heal the scars we left behind. Maybe the silence between our glances is gentler than the weight of words unspoken. The nights stretch on like the miles between us, do you feel it? The absence, the ache, the closeness of what almost was. I stand at the threshold of our past and future, one foot in the memories we shared, the other in a future we may never touch. Were we anything more than two souls reaching, running along the outline of something that no longer exists? There’s not enough distance to forget, yet too much to reach you. I watch the tide rush in, wondering if I fought against the current, would you come ashore with me, or would you drift further into the deep? Would we unravel completely, or could we weave ourselves into something new? But maybe love is knowing when to stop reaching. Maybe it’s recognizing that we gave all we could and stepping back before we lose ourselves entirely. I’m not okay with loving you from afar, but maybe distance is the only thing keeping us whole.

The worst part of it all is that I can’t even recognize the depth of my own flaws. I beg for forgiveness, but the same destructive habits rise up once again. Why can’t I change? I try over and over, sifting through the past, searching for the root of what needs to be fixed. But every time I think I’ve grasped it, it slips away, sinking back into the soil, just out of reach. The more I struggle, the further it moves from me. What am I doing wrong? I can’t seem to understand. The guilt tears at me, a gut-wrenching pain swelling in my chest as I hear how I’ve hurt you. Each day brings a new argument, one that never seems to resolve. I can handle the fights, as long as I get to keep you, but it doesn’t change anything; you just seem to drift farther away. I want to meet you in the middle, to make the effort, to bridge the gap, but it feels like the distance between us only grows. Every misstep, every harsh word, every mistake adds to the void. I just want to fix it, to end the pain, and to grow beyond this darkness inside of me.

Blocked. And just like that, the world falls silent. But silence is never truly empty, something must fill the void. Teardrops splatter against the ground, streaming from weary eyes like rain on a metal rooftop. A rhythmic, sorrowful percussion. Ears ring, drowning out everything, even the hush of solitude. The quiet sobs of defeat escape, reluctant but unstoppable. I can’t bear it. Each passing minute winds me tighter into the spiral, every breath shallower than the last, as if a crushing weight is pressing down on my chest. My fingers claw at my face, pleading for the tears to stop, but they refuse, relentless, unyielding reminders. My hands curl into fists, nails digging deep into my palms, desperate to grasp a rope that is no longer there. I should get up, find something, anything, to anchor my restless mind. But no matter how hard I try, I am forced to listen. Forced to endure the consequences of my own undoing.