If this is, what my fear is telling me this is.
Then you are not the man, I thought you were.
And this was a lie.

I’ve been missing you -
So much if physically hurts.
I’ve been thinking of you -
So much I’m sometimes convinced others can hear my thoughts.
I’ve been loving you -
And I can’t figure out how to stop.

Every time my phone buzzes.
I hope it’s you.

Shouldn’t feeling this deeply matter?
Shouldn’t all of this love count for something?
Is it really all going to go to waste?

This pain is different.
It’s visceral.
I’m hurting in parts of me I didn’t know could feel pain.
I can’t eat.
When I sleep I dream of him.
I keep telling myself every logical thought.
But it doesn’t keep me from feeling this ****.

My ex told me when I broke up with him:
You don’t love me like you think you love me. Because if you did you wouldn’t be leaving.

One day, you still meet someone, you love more than you could think possible. And you will plan a future with them. You’ll be so sure of it. And he will break your heart.

When that happens, you’ll know how I feel.
Because you don’t feel how I do right now, If you did, you would have never left.

And I now realize, five years later.
He was right. I would have never left.

I can’t eat more than a few bites.
After 2 or 3 I feel stuffed.
It’s probably because my body is processing too many other things right now.
It’s full.

There is no trace of you.
All belongings mailed back.
Not even a rogue sock to show you were here.
No social media post or our love that I can look at and think of when we were happy and debate on deleting.
It’s like you were never here.
Your key no longer on my ring.
Your name not on my tongue.
And yet, I wreak of you.

If I am anything, I am persevering.

At the end of the day I have no regrets.
I was the best version of myself in this relationship.
I gave everything I could.
I didn’t put up masks or walls or conceal the way I was feeling.
I gave it everything.
And I can’t make him love me if he doesn’t.
At the end of the day it doesn’t matter why he doesn’t love me.
Or that he can’t love me because of trauma or mental health.
He just can’t love me.
And I am worthy of love.

I am worthy of love.
I am not the insults past lovers have called me.
I have so much to give.
Pure and loyal love.
Which will be reciprocated.
I will be loved so fiercely.
No one.
Not even me.
Will be able to doubt it.
I will be loved so fully that I can show the depths of my love to another.
I am worthy of love.

It’s not my fault I love you so.
You made me like this.
It’s not my fault you were burned by another.
I cannot erase those scars, but I promise I am cool to the touch.
I do not want to disconnect.
Don’t make me.
I can go on without you and I’ll be fine.
Maybe that would be easier.
But I don’t want easier.
I don’t want to stop loving you.

I still believe in us.
I still believe we’ll make it.
I catch glimpses of him coming back to me.
I know I can be his home if he’ll let me.

I am more happy around him than without him.
Despite his half-affection.
It’s not that he’s not trying, or not being nice.
He cuddles me and buys me flowers-
But that doesn’t conceal the way his eyes don’t whisper I love you anymore.

I love you and I’ve run out of excuses of why I shouldn’t say it.

I’m not saying this out of insecurity.
I’m saying this from a place of confidence because even if you break up with me, I want you to know.

I don’t want to have held in what I know. What I have known since February, maybe before.

I want to be vulnerable with you because I’ve never felt like I could before.

So I need to say this to you unprompted.
I need to say it first.
I love you.
I love this version of you.
I don’t love the idea of you.
I love this life with you.
I love you more than I have ever loved anyone else.

Do you want me to love you?
I mean do you actually want THIS love. THIS life.
Because if you want me to love you, truly.
It will be engulfing.
I will love you to depths you have never felt.
It will be perspective shifting.
It will change both of us.

And here’s the thing.
I don’t think you’ve ever been loved properly before.
And I’d like to do just that.

There are ghosts of you.
In words that don’t matter.
Ones I forget until I say them in a moment of absent mindedness and realize I do because of you.

Why is it the deepest, most real feelings are the hardest to write?

Why do I keep backspacing over the truth?

Like elastic being stretched apart,
Only to be slapped back together again once the resistance eases.
I crash back into you every. ****. time.

I never thought I’d find a snore so comforting.

But it proves to me every moment you’re still laying beside me.

I admire people’s words when they feel so deeply, just not their actions.

I admire my actions when I choose logic, just not my words.

We raced to the beach to catch the sunset
Parking quickly and running out
Many others had done the same.

I look to my right and realize over 100
People are on this beach to watch
The sun leave us over the horizon.

We talk about previous civilizations’
Religious rituals
In that moment, I realized I was in one.

You don’t make me happy.
I am that on my own.
But you magnify my happiness so beautifully.
Like an acoustic guitar being plugged into an amp.
The same, but louder.
The same, but better.

Milk
Eggs
Red wine
Parm cheese
Hands held
Your embrace
Half-awake kisses

I thought a wedding board was dumb before you.
Friends pinned for a wedding with an unknown man.
Now I find myself glancing at wedding pictures.
“An elopement in Italy sounds nice”
Popped into my head.

If I’m going mad.
Don’t take me out of the rabbit hole.
I like it here.

You are the boy
Who makes me forget
That any others exist

The first morning we woke up together
& I looked over to see your hand interlocked within mine.

I knew you had me.

If your eyes were the Atlantic Ocean-
No matter how strong the ship.
Or how accurate the navigation system.
I’d still get lost.

Everywhere I imagine myself going-
The vacations I have yet to plan.
Cities I have not yet seen.
I imagine waking up there with you.

That’s the thing about writing.
You think if you can confess your vices poetically enough, they’re not vices at all.

You be the church, I’ll be the steeple.
I’ll shout my love for you to all of the people.
Let it be seen from blocks away.
Let no winding road or large oak hide my exaltation of you.
I can not pack you away with the ***** in the basement.
The hymns must be sung.
Let us rise.

I got angry at you today.
But I don’t think it’s my fault that I want to be exactly where you are all the time.
After all, you made me this way.

On that balcony in Paris -
I wanted to call you with every fiber of me.

Like a life-long smoker trying to not light that cigarette wedged between his fingers.

Shaking.

I was an addict craving my next fix.
The withdrawals of you stung.
My body ached for you.

I knew you were poison.

I didn’t call you that night.
I wasn’t miraculously strong after.

But that was the first night I said no.
And I wasn’t sure if I could.

It was the first time that fresh air was inhaled where I felt in control.

I wanted to so badly. But didn’t.

That wasn’t the end, it took more pain before that happened.

But I am still proud looking back to that balcony.

My mind creates you when you’re not here to hold me.
I dream of you every night.

I am sure of you because I’ve never needed perfect moments with you.
I don’t need to stand underneath a mistletoe or fireworks to kiss you.  
I don’t need a romantic evening to want you.
I don’t need a weekend of activities to enjoy   you.
I don’t need a good joke to laugh at you.
I am sure of you because of the way I feel grocery shopping with you.
I am sure of you because of the way I feel cleaning the house with you.
I am sure of you because of the way I feel disagreeing with you.
I am sure of you because of how much I love the mundane things of life with you.

I come before you with not just words or promises. I come to you with a vision. A vision of our future.

A vision of our love, loyalty and the dedication we will share over our lifetime together. Of the roots we will plant, the home we will create and the family we will make. Of the blood sweat and tears we will sacrifice for each other, but that our laughter and joy will make them seem so very small.

This vision is something I never saw before you. And you have made me see it all so so clearly.

I will grow old with you.
I will go grey with you.
I will be with you for as long as this life allows me to be.

I am sure of you.

I vow to you that I will remember this vision of certainty in the hurt and sacrifices that are inevitable in life. Through the bad days, through the tough months through sickness and any obstacles.

I am sure of you.

You make me believe in romcoms again.
You’re the one I wouldn’t run away from.

If there’s one ******* thing in this world I never want to stop seeing. It’s your smile, your real smile, when you look at me.

Where am I?
“You’re dead.” They said.

“It was quick, that’s why you have no memory. No pain, you came straight here.”

And where is here?

“Heaven of course”

Right right.
Well, glad I made it.
So what’s next? Do I go inside?

“Nope first you have to settle up your will.”

My will? Like my last will and testament?

“Yep!”

I think I did one of those, when I was living?

“No no sorry... not the will of your earth stuff. The will of your energy.”

My what?

“Your energy. The energy that was given to you upon birth.”

What do you mean?

“Energy never dies, it just goes into other things.”

Ok... sorry i’m still a little lost.

“You know when you felt like someone who died is with you? Or you get a sense they are watching out for you?”

Yes... of course.

“Did you think that was just in your head? Your emotions getting the better of you?”

Well kind of...

“Wrong! That’s their energy. They willed a portion of their energy to you. That’s why you felt them. They gave you a piece of themselves. It’s the most core thing you can will.”  

Wow. So I get to choose who feels those moments with me?

“Yes. Yes you do.”

Ok this might take a while...

“Don’t take too long, all of the people who willed to you - they’re right inside so excited to see you.”

I feel like saying I love you but I haven’t yet.

Sometimes I say it in my head after saying good night.

I double checked my text to you last night to make sure I didn’t accidentally let it slip. I felt so strongly I just knew my thoughts could have leaked onto paper.

I feel like saying I love you, but I haven’t yet.

It feels different with you.
In ways I keep failing to articulate.
There are no new things, but somehow they are all different.

Grocery store shopping is different with you.
Watching TV on the sofa is different with you.
Embracing you in my arms at night is different.

It’s a peace I’ve never had before.
That’s the main “different.”

A peace that some might describe as a knowing.

I don’t know if I know he’s the one.

But- the line from 500 days of summer feels like it rings true. “I just knew - What I was never sure of with you.”

I have a suspicion there is something I am supposed to be looking forward to.

Is that you?

I guard myself from feeling because I don’t want the hurt.

I keep myself from falling because I’m afraid of the bruises.

It’s absurd how much I care about a ******* like.
The value subconsciously derived from a double tap.
Refreshing the page again and again.
You are valid, important, and loved... even if that picture you posted on Instagram recently performed like ****.

If something triggers an unexpected love-struck memory quick enough, my heart still skips a beat.

It forgets he isn’t real.
He never was the man I fell in love with.

I didn’t need this city to create magic.
I needed me - fully unleashed, raw and unapologetic.

LA was just the place I finally allowed that to manifest.