Once upon a time, there was a man who wished to be an ice sculptor. He took a block of ice and a chisel and got straight to work.
He sculpted a woman, as beautiful as any other. He sculpted her to be his perfect complement, the woman he wished was real. He sculpted her with a smile and open arms, with kind eyes and a perfect body.
After he was finished, she was absolutely lovely, and absolutely everything that he had ever wanted his ice sculpture to be.
But then he went on to sculpt other things, and she started to become a further and further thought, distanced from his mind as his other projects became more important.
One day, he realized he'd forgotten all about his first piece of work. She'd started to crack and melt in places, but she was still almost perfect.
Instead of fixing her, the sculptor broke her in pieces with his chisel so he didn't have to worry about fixing her.

I still see your face in my dreams.

Is this what loss actually feels like? The way my whole body aches as these days work their way forward, as my brain refuses to think of you until the dark hours of the night when I can't think of literally anything else.

I love you
                                                             it's over
I need you
                                 I can't do this anymore

Back and forth back and forth
I am so empty without your hands holding my flyaway pieces together

I don't know why I wasn't good enough.

Dear 17 year old me,

You'll fall in love with a boy this year that will bring you as much happiness as pain.
You'll fall in love with his eyes, and the dimples in his smile,
And dear girl you will cry when the loneliness of his departure makes the innermost of you empty and aching.

I would tell you to run now, that when your friend tries to give you his phone number, to turn her down.

But in this pain, five years later, five years of the highest highs and the lowest lows, as I ache from the innermost of me and feel empty, in this pain I tell you do not run.

Without him, you will not have a million poems, you will not have some of the best nights of your life. You will not sleeplessly wonder what you've done wrong, or sleepily whisper your "I love yous" into his ear.

And what is love without heartbreak?
What would I be without him?

Humor me, little past self. Fall in love with him. Write poems about his eyes, write letters to him with no end. Love him. Lose him. Fight him. Love him again.

And then come back as me, twice as strong and twice as weary.

You won't regret it.

Love, you at 21.