Once
When I was a kid
My dad and I were walking and
We turned down a street that had the setting sun
Directly in my eyes.
I asked my dad to curse it.
He told me
We can't do that, for
Without the sun
We'd cease to exist.

Now
I sometimes find myself wishing to curse you
And I find myself
Unable to do so.

If I'd never had you
I don't know who I'd be.

When I called my mom that night
Trying to decide if I wanted to spend forever
With
Or without you
I asked her
"Will I ever find someone who loves me the way she does?"
And she told me
"Maybe. Maybe not."
I made the greatest gamble that I've ever seen in my short life,
I put all my chips on another instead.
And for so long....
I won.
For so long, I was the champion.
The high roller.
The big bucks
We were the fire that kept the whole casino alight.

We've been put out now for longer than we officially burned
And I've come to accept that.
I've grown to love myself as myself
Without her by my side
But sometimes I still miss that heat.
And having felt it so hot
For so long,
Having had something
So uniquely us,
Now I wonder for real
If I'll ever have something that can compare.
I'm unsure if I will
But then,
The gambler's role is to take chances.

It is time
For me to do unto you
What you've done for me.
For me to stop making you a priority.

It is time
For me to decide how I want to
Look upon the past
And what light
Or darkness
I want to carry forth
From here on out.

It is time
For me to look at myself
My fears
My flaws
My insecurities
My habits
My....

It is time
For me to remember that it hasn't always been like this
That I
Haven't always been like this.

It is time
For me to decide
Who I'm going to be.

The clock has been ticking
And I've been standing still.

The truer answer to your question is that I ask myself every day if I'm still in love with you, or if this is just the friend version of our sunlit love. There was a chunk of time where I was relatively certain I wasn't, but for now the jury is back out. And I'm so extremely glad that you're happy, and that you've found someone, and I know that this is why you aren't visiting, but this is part of why I want to visit. To see and to know, ya know? But regardless of these feelings that may or may not exist, I will always love you and I will always love us, in whatever form our relationship is at the moment. This isn't me asking for change and this isn't me asking for attention or trying to be melodramatic, and you don't even have to answer or acknowledge this, but you asked. And the truth is...this is my reality.

I spent so many suns searching for gods
So many moons searching for you.

After all this time
It turns out

You can't fall back on feelings
That are no longer there.

You have never been a rebound.
You've always been the original.
Everyone else is an 'after.'

Whenever I think of the phrase
"Thoughts fill my head"
I think of you
Because you're the only person for which
That's ever felt literally true.
Thoughts of you are akin to a sponge inside my brain,
Pushing out,
Swelling up,
Eradicating the possibility
For any further thought.


What's more
It feels warm,
This fullness in my head.


As if anyone could've told me,
But I wish someone would've said,
That when you find the one
Who makes you feel like this



Keep her



Or for the rest of your life



You'll miss her.