Winter came around in the same way you came into my life; slowly, quietly and gently. Snow fell from the sky and the sun rose later and set earlier in the day. I couldn't help but think that my time might just be running out but you came along and brought warmth to the cold and you lit the path when it got dark. Spring rolled around and we blossomed like the flowers and the leaves on the trees but if I had only ******* known how much we would relate. Summer arrived and you were in your prime; you wore yellow and let your hair grow out, things were finally looking like they would be okay for once. The grass was cut from time to time and I never realised that every time it was trimmed our time was getting stolen away too. Autumn showed and the leaves turned orange and then fell from the trees and you never did like this time of year. Things went from sweet to sour and I should have seen that you were leaving. It's Winter again and you left my life the same way you came except now I'm not sure if the days are getting shorter or if I was just living on borrowed time.

"I do care though, I promise."
These are the last words you said to me at this exact moment in time. I'm lying in bed and all I can think of the the time we were walking through London, tired and lost and we didn't know where we were going and I was telling you a story and you weren't listening to a word I was saying. It was then that I decided I should quieten down, a man could never love a woman with a motormouth like mine and from that day onwards I tried my best to keep myself to myself. I bottle things up now to the point where the glass smashes when it gets too full and everything comes out but it's okay because it's not coming from me, it's coming from somewhere else and when I asked you how you'd know if someone cared you told me they'd be there for you. You were never here so you never heard the words that came out when the glass shattered. You never heard and you were never around to see what would happen after, you were never around to see what I would do to myself with the broken pieces that were left on the floor for me to clean up. It doesn't happen often and for that, I am glad, but when it hits it hits hard and you should know that. You should be here because now I'm left questioning whether or not you care, and because of the fact that you taught me to stay quiet I can't even confront you about these things. And now I've always been bad with endings, so I'll say goodbye in the form of broken glass and ****** hands because this is the end.

My therapist asked me what makes me happy and all I could think to say was the look in your eyes when you saw the sun setting or the feeling of your fingers tracing my skin or the way your lips tasted when you'd been drinking those sweet cocktails that have more an effect than you'd think, or maybe even the sound of your car pulling into my driveway. She asked me why I always speak about you in past tense when you're still here and I reminded her of our first session when she told me that nothing is permanent and everything is temporary, so you must be temporary too. I want to prepare myself for the day you leave because I know for every minute you're here it's going to be harder to say goodbye. I imagine you being half way out the door, one foot in and one foot out, when I know you're actually sat next to me, too scared to touch in case I break, but with me all the same. I told my therapist that I want to be alone when I die, and if I'm not alone I want everyone to expect it and know that it's going to happen because some people leave you so suddenly you're left with holes in your life I don't want to be the person to hurt you like that.

You're seventeen and you're bitter, so ******* bitter, because your friends have gone elsewhere and you've been left all alone and you kissed him but he's been saying her name and the taste isn't what you wanted it to be. You're seventeen and you're smoking now, you're smoking to get rid of the taste of her from your lips because as much as you wish he loved you like he loves her, you're never going to be her and some things are just too close for you to deal with. You're seventeen and it's the evening, your father has gone out and you've been left home alone with a cupboard full of alcohol and a draw full of pills. A handful of this and a glass of that, how bad could it be? You're still seventeen and you're throwing up and you can't control it anymore, you don't know if you really want to die or not but your body is giving up, your brain made that decision the second you stumbled into the bathroom with a bottle in one hand and a blade in the other. You're not seventeen anymore; you're not really anything. You're gone.

Shooting stars will always remind me of the way we kissed and the fields we spent our only summer drunk in and the time when everything was carefree and lovely and the world was kind. Shooting stars remind me of the way you first touched me when everything was new and exciting and we were drunk off of each other's love. Shooting stars remind me of the way we fizzled out and for the first time in my life it didn't hurt when someone was leaving, it only hurt when I realised they were gone but by then it was okay and I could deal with it and shoot up and be as high as the stars that we fell in and out of love to. Shooting stars remind me of the nights we went out, we faked our names to anyone we met with adrenaline running through our veins and glitter around our eyes. Shooting stars remind me of getting older and having more responsibility but still finding the time for a meaningless hookup on your bedroom floor because we were too wasted to make it to the bed. Shooting stars remind me of driving around your town one more time so we could catch a song that reminded us of the times when we were younger and now I guess shooting stars will always remind me of you.

I should be used to the sight and sound of you leaving now because it happens so often but every time you slam the door and leave the shouting and the screaming and the sound of broken plates behind the ringing in my ears just gets louder and louder until it's all I can focus on. I thought maybe I could be better for you if I stopped trying to protect the plates you would smash in the future and started fixing the broken pieces from past arguments to get all of my feelings out but now I'm just a limp body on the floor surrounded by the colour that fills the air when we fight. You left and I didn't hear you come back, no one did, and I'm starting to wonder who called the ambulance and left the door open so they could get to me in time. I didn't want to die but I guess I didn't really want to live either and now all I can hear are empty footsteps outside of past lovers crossing paths as ghosts of whom they used to be. Maybe I should be used to the sight of you leaving, but maybe you should get used to the sight of me being nothing more than a ghost.

Moving on from you in the same way the tide moves away from the sand at night; we're running in circles but each time I leave I will learn to distance myself further until I reach the point where I can safely say I'll never reach out to you again, but you will always be longing for me to come back to you. I will leave traces of myself and I will leave you with sharp memories that hurt you to think about, the same way your jagged edges cut anyone whom gets too close because you've built these walls with broken glass poking out of the bricks because I'm not the only one with a ******* drinking problem and I should have stopped trying to pull your walls down the second I realised I couldn't do anything without tearing myself to pieces in the process. You told me I'd never succeed but I was blinded by the sunlight because beaches never were meant to be cloudy. I guess you could argue that you and I never were a sign of anything good. You pulled at my hair and I pulled at your skin searching for any signs that we could ever work out and you always told me I was an optimist but now I'm just starting to wonder if you ever cared at all.