dear self,

if anyone ever hurts you to the point that it breaks you, please be strong. strong enough to pick yourself up, strong enough to be able to say NO and walk away from that person who hurt you, strong enough to choose yourself over anyone else. it's okay to be selfish when you have been nothing but selfless. i want you to tell yourself, "my bones are broken and i am my own doctor. i will heal myself not because he hurt me but because i choose to."

dear self,

if it ever gets too hard, i want you to cry. cry so hard that your tears will form seas. cry so hard that your wails will echo throughout the mountains. cry, not because you want to be heard but because you want to hear yourself. stop only when you feel empty enough. empty enough that when you look at the mirror, you no longer recognize the face blankly staring back at you. then wipe away the tears, smile and tell yourself, "i was once a painting that has been washed anew. i was painted in dark colors but those no longer matter because from now on, i will be colored in the brightest of the bright."

dear self,

whenever you're happy, i want you to remember the things that make you sad. not because i don't want you to experience joy but because i want you to learn that through those trials, failures and mistakes, you still have the capacity to be happy. there were days of gloom, of gray skies and colorless eyes but those were yesterday. i want you to tell yourself, "today, i am the calm sunshine after the raging storm. i will radiate warmth as long as my hearth burns within me and i will not let the fiercest of the winds and the strongest of the rains dampen my fire. tomorrow is another story but today, i will be the fire to warm the cold."

My favorite sound is the beating of your heart. My favorite sight is the ocean within your eyes. My favorite feeling is the slightest touch from the tips of your fingers. My favorite word is my name uttered from your lips.

Even though it hurt me so much to the point that I was completely obliterated, my favorite heartbreak is when your love ran out and you decided I wasn't enough for you. You're still my favorite person and perhaps you will always be one of my favorites but in time; another's heartbeat will become my lullaby, another's sky set on fire will become my perfect view and another's kiss will become my safe haven.

But I will never forget the way you said my name. You said it with so much affection but with pain on the side. Your eyes always lit up as my name rolled off your tongue but then it dimmed whenever you saw the euphoric look on my face. It was as if you always knew that you would love me so much but then hurt me in the end.

If I could take your place in death, would I?**

No.

I would rather bear the weight of the graves of grief and drown in the seas of sadness than let you know this kind of suffering. I would rather let my heart be torn in half out of loss than let yours be crushed by sorrow.

---

Yes.

You will feel pain and become empty and hollow but you will live and thrive and slowly be whole again and that will be enough for me as I smile down at you from the skies.

I didn't (and won't) love you until my last breath but I can tell you that I loved you until the very last day of the last year of "us". I waited, I held my breath until the very last moment, before I let go. I overstayed my welcome in this ocean of "us" when I was being thrashed away into the shores long before I could even begin to take in what would be my final breath for "us". I'm definitely not proud of that but you know what I'm proud of, what I wouldn't mind whispering in the ears of strangers? It's the fact that when I let go of that one final breath for "us", as the new year began to unfold, I no longer felt chained to the ruins of "us". As time moved on and reached a new dawn everyone celebrated, I felt free for the first time in a very, very long time. I have been released from shackles that have bound me for so long and I no longer feel any lingering sadness nor bitterness, even in the deepest chambers of my heart. And that, I am proud of.

My favorite tragedies? What-ifs and what-could-have-beens.

What if?

What if I chose to take the 1:30 train instead of the 1:15? 15 minutes and we could have remained as total strangers to each other.

What if I chose the empty spot next to the old lady instead of sitting beside you? A few seats away and I wouldn't even know the color of your eyes.

What if I got off the station before yours? A stop away and our story wouldn't even have a beginning.

What if I chose to shut off the world and just put on my earphones as I walked home? Several steps of jamming to The Chainsmokers and I wouldn't even hear the sound of your voice.

What if I pretended I couldn't make it to the party you invited me to? A simple excuse and a thousand dances with you would have been nothing but daydreams.

What if I was an hour late to our first date and you just decided to leave a moment before I arrived? A minute's difference and we would have ended even before we could have started.

What if you decided to drive down that highway where three people died that night? A reckless mistake and we wouldn't even be breathing the same air.

What if you never told me you loved me and that I meant everything to you? Nine unspoken words and we would be a story of missed chances.

What if I didn't tell you I loved you too and you meant to me more than everything in this world? Fifteen unuttered words and we would have been a story of yesterdays.

What if you decided to stay instead of giving me up? We could have been still holding each other until the night breaks into dawn.

What if I decided to hold on instead of letting you go? We could have been still having those long talks about anything under the sun and beyond.

What if you decided to turn around and make it all right? Our song would have played right where it was paused.

What if we could travel back in time, would you do it all again?

Because I would. I would still take the 1:15 train.
I would still pick the seat right next to you.
I would still get off on your station even if it meant walking thirty minutes home.
I would still leave my earphones off just to see if you would talk to me.
I would still go to Tom's party even though I hated him and his friends.
I would still arrive an hour early to our first date just to make sure I didn't miss you.
I would still lead you in circles on the way to my house just to get more time with you.
I would still wait for you to say those nine words even though I saw it in your eyes every day.
I would still say those fifteen words even though I knew you already knew.

I would do it all over again, go through it all over again even if I knew we would end up like this, even if I knew that you would choose to leave and that I would choose to let you go.

Why? Because we could have been the grandest story ever told, we could have been each other's greatest love we no longer had. It was better to have known your sweetest affection and most painful surrender than to have not known any love and hurt at all.

My favorite tragedy? Us.

You talked like a song and I sounded like a poet. You saw the world like a sunrise and I only saw sunsets. Your favorite days were gloomy ones and I loved the rain.

We were alike but not quite. We were similar but not exactly the same. We weren't opposites but we were attracted to each other.

Our affection was stronger than the pull of a blackhole. We were quickly ****** into our own universe where we created our own world of songs and poems, of sunrises and sunsets, of gloom and rain.

But it was all an illusion, a sweet imagining, a lovely lie.

We were almosts, almost the same, almost the perfect equals. We had little differences but they were still polarities; and in the end, our ends didn't meet.

I miss you out of habit. I still find myself searching for your eyes and yearning for your touch even though we are no longer a we. It's just a you and a me now. It has always been so hard for me to deal with change, I always end up reaching across the other side of the bed, always thinking my fingers would still come across yours. I have spent so much of my heart loving you that I failed to see I would end up clawing at the air you used to warm with your presence and staring at blank spaces where you used to be. I miss you out of habit, the habit being us, but that habit has proven itself to be a bad one so we ceased to exist and we were replaced with untouched hands and empty spaces.

I knew you were something else the moment you answered my question.

"What's your favorite color?"
You shrugged before replying with, "Whatever color the sky is."

From then on I couldn't help but stare at the sky every chance I had. When I was bored out of my mind at school, while listening to music in the car, or simply walking home.

I saw the fiery reds and oranges, the cotton candy purples and pinks, the brightest blues, and the softest pastels. I saw them all and I saw you too. I have never seen something so majestic yet simply beautiful. I have never come across something so awe-inspiring yet something so out of reach. I have never met someone so different, the good kind of different.

Everyday, I stare at the sky then look into your eyes and I see a tinge of sadness underneath the unending awe and undying love. I felt it all too. After all, we both loved something that was way beyond our reach.

You were the exclamation point in the sentence of my feelings, a loud and restless reminder of the erratic beating of my heart whenever I saw you.

You were the comma in the first group of my thoughts, a promise of more, a promise of better days to come.

You were the parentheses in this world of paragraphs, keeping me safe within your arms, making me feel the good kind of different.

Yet too soon, you became a question mark in my head. I was slowly filled with doubt and uncertainty. You were my sanctuary but your walls were crumbling down, the beautiful book we were writing was falling apart.

You are the period. An ending. A conclusion. A warning sign that says this is the end. The problem was that I let you be anything that you could be, so you became punctuation marks in our story. You were an exclamation point, a comma and parentheses but you became a question mark and now, a period. I let you become anything so you became our ending. You are the period to the conclusion of our story but what I failed to see was that I was the one holding the pen. **You were the ending and I was the writer.

I loved you too much that I forgot to leave a small part of myself for me. My love was too much but not enough for myself. So I said goodbye even though I loved you just as much or perhaps even more than I loved the stars and galaxies. Because how could I love you right when I didn't even know how to love myself?

Are you not afraid of the mountains they have built and the oceans they are crashing against us?

I would traverse through those mountains and sail across those waves because I love you, it is as simple as that. I know you would do the same for me and we'd meet halfway because you love me too, it is as simple as that. But it is not that easy.

Maybe we should keep our maps, bring down the sails and say goodbye to the mountains, oceans and us. Maybe we should lock away our love deep within us and save it for another life.

Perhaps; in another universe, in another lifetime, in different circumstances, we would not even have to cross mountains and oceans just to find each other again.

Summer.* It was a clear and sunny day when I saw you. The birds chirped as we said our hellos. The flowers were in full bloom and soon, our feelings followed. We got to know each other like the rainbow that once kissed the sky.  We danced like the clouds drifting against the blues. You were the warmth that embraced me like the sunlight that passed through my window, shadows dancing to your mellow song. Our love was a summer of sun and laughter. We were the clear blue skies, the kind you wanted to keep forever, the kind that made you wish you could fly.

Autumn. It was September when you first told me you were feeling confused. One leaf started to fall and then another. It was October when you first told me you were getting tired. More leaves fell but I fought so hard to keep those other leaves from falling, from leaving the very tree that gave it life. I fought for us but I lost. I lost you like the tree lost its leaves. Our fallout was an autumn of drifting leaves, carried away by the wind into nothingness.

Winter. Cold. Silence. They say cold is the absence of heat and as you left, so did the warmth from the sunlight that made the shadows dance, so did the clear blue skies, the kind that made you want to fly. My world was an empty tundra of snow, no warmth, no shelter to protect me from the relentless cold. Everything was buried underneath the dull whites. My loneliness was a winter of colorless plains and endless pains.

Spring.* Rebirth. A new start. Slowly but surely, the snow melted and gave way to the greens, yellows and reds. They weren't the brightest but they were still *colors. Colors after the once seemingly endless tyranny of the cold white. **I am a reawakening from a slumber of lone darkness. I am a new morning, a sun of a new beginning, a sky of a promising tomorrow.

"So, tell me. Do you love the game?" he asked.

"Yes. I do," I reply as I strain every muscle in my head, trying not to nod as if I was also convincing myself.

He gives an almost imperceptible nod as if trying to convince himself too.

I do nothing but watch him turn his back and leave.

And every single moment spent staring at the mirror not recognizing the con artist I have become flashed in my mind.

I have decided to play the game yet you have conceded the moment you sealed the wall as you turned away.

We were the only ones playing the game yet we were both losing.

You are like the sun.

Sometimes spots and rays I get glimpses of under the shade of trees; calming.
You always held my hand. Sleeping, walking, do or die situations. No matter what, when and where, the spaces between mine were always filled with your fingers. You always gave it a little squeeze, an assurance that you would always be there.

Sometimes warming heat against my skin; weirdly pleasing.
You always made those extremely goofy faces and told those godawful jokes. Anything and everything just to make me laugh. You always put my happiness above your own.

Sometimes full on heat burning me at every touch; afflictive.
Like every other couple, we had our bad days. You were always painfully honest, could never tell a lie. You couldn't help being mean but I knew you were telling the truth. You always did.

But days don't last forever on Earth and stars have long yet inevitably doomed lives in the universe.
You loved me deeply. You loved me so much, too much and that was exactly the problem. You loved me so much, your love was an outcry, outflow, an explosion of affection. You loved me so much that one day you just stopped. Neither you nor I knew the reason. Was there even one?

The sun will set and die, gone temporarily and forever.
I never thought we would come to an end but no one ever sees something like this coming. No one is ever prepared for heartbreak, loss, grief. No one is ever prepared to say goodbye but you deserve one. Goodbye, my love. Today, tomorrow and beyond.

You are the light rain; softly falling towards the ground, giving me a calm feeling.

You are the lightning that electrifies me, sending shock waves through my body; consuming my thoughts, consuming me.

You are the thunder that keeps me on my toes; a screaming reminder of what it is like to be alive.

You are the soothing winds that carry me; a tender embrace, a soft caress, giving me peace at the slightest touch.

Yet our love was too much and it quickly became a hurricane; huge nimbus clouds rioting across the sky, a warning of what's to come; the torrential and unforgiving rain, relentless as it soaked every surface and precipice.

We are each other's salvation, rain, lightning, thunder and wind. **Yet no one ever told us that we would brew a storm and become each other's worst destruction.