and I’ve come to realize that if affection isn’t given freely, it’s not worth having
i’ve grown tired of driving down dead-end roads as if I could pave my own way out
and i’ve learned to know that it may look like love, but it feels a lot more like pain
and loving someone who doesn’t feel the same isn’t really love at all
and you could spend the rest of your life waiting for someone to realize they want you in theirs
and I knew, no matter what you said you were never going to be sure of me
so I’ll move move on with the realization that there are better things to come than what I’ve left behind
embracing the endings in what is not meant to be

I've been scolded for using the word 'love' too often
throwing it away, as if it had to be secured for romantic encounters or within a length of time
like it might become tired or meaningless
but what if I am so full of love I can't help but overflow with it?
what if I've known platonic love, tender love, fervent love?

so I'll say 'I love you', only when I mean it
and I hope my abundance of it never runs dry
I hope it flows out of me effortlessly, because there will never be such thing as loving too much

I have never known how to be enough
always either exceedingly too much or not quite there at all
I wonder, did you feel like I was suffocating you?
or did you feel like you had to coerce words out of my mouth for me to admit I felt anything at all?
I am reckless in my emotions, impulsive in my words
I spent months learning to pretend I'm not plagued by your memory
I wonder if you spend time mourning what we lost
I wonder if you get a stomach ache when you think about the ending
or if it's a heavy sigh of relief, a warmth against your skin
I wonder if I'm best kept as a memory
tell me, what makes you think of me?
the frizz in your hair, or the bad taste in your mouth?
your worst day or your best- It'd be a pleasure to be any of your days at all

you look at me like you might drown in me
a body of water, to rinse away the exhaustion
you look at me like there are depths you've yet to dive into
uncharted territory
you trace the inches of me like there will always be more to love
like you will never grow tired of the skin I'm in
I've grown up knowing that my body is a temple
but I've never met someone so dedicated to worshipping it

your body will sting when you remember his hands
and you'll start contaminating your skin with the touch of strangers hoping all remnants left of his finger-tips fade away
self-love sounds like a foreign language since he walked away
but loving yourself is a process, long overdue
his name is not a synonym for contentment
I know there is a longing deep within your bones and it feels as though he's the only person who could satisfy it
this is your body whispering that it is time to love it back
you are allowed to lay down your weapons and give up the war with yourself

I heard that you're still waiting
summer came and summer left
and too much has changed to ever dig up what we once were
but if you remember me, remember me gently
the sun peeks in after all the rain in April
and you think of how my skin looked kissed by it
neither of us were born knowing how to love
and I hope someday you get closer to it than we ever did

you have to learn to outgrow things without it breaking you
you'll revisit memories and places like old friends
and the most beautiful thing will be the way you've changed, when other things have stayed the same
certain pieces of your life are only meant for seasons
certain people, too
there's a melancholy beauty in walking away
let them go, with a soft kind of ruthlessness
endings don't have to be tragedies