you shifted the situation that whenever i spoke to you all you felt was such formidable hurt.
you chose silence over vulnerability,
and i don't blame you.
the unrequited love i receive from you has shaped me to realize how incapable you are of loving me.
it cost me my authenticity.
the feeling of wanting to speak but then having to consider the hurt that would come with it...
i chose to quietly surrender to loneliness.
and i'd rather do that a hundred more times if it meant i wouldn't have to keep filling my own wounds with even more heartache.

i was angry at the whole world because you couldn’t love me.
i couldn’t bare myself to accept the truth,
the truth that i really was just unlovable.
and the worst part: i’m never the one that falls in love first - i just end up being a prisoner in love.
i was angry at the world for continuing to spin while i had to mourn.
why couldn’t the world mourn with me?
how could the world keep spinning when mine had stopped?
but i realized something…
i wasn’t really angry at the world.
i was angry at myself for having so much love for you that all this love had nowhere to go.
where am i to store all this heartache?

something that was once real with you still lives in my chest --
and nothing temporary has been able to replace it.
we built a life together,
a future we both let die,
and now i'm haunted by you.
it's almost time for me to move to your city,
a place where all the shared plans we made were supposed to become real,
and now i feel the silence between us growing louder.
having to grieve the version of me who once loved you was never on my bucket list.
but being alone has felt like punishment.
except every day after you has helped me choose myself a little more.
and i'll keep doing it until i no longer crave you.
i'll keep choosing myself until i no longer crave people who wouldn't dare to choose me back.