You need to go. And I don't know how to do it. I don't want to forget you, to cut you off. I don't want to shatter my love for you. There has to be another way. But... you need to go. I can't keep waking up sore every morning. Raw. I can't keep talking myself out of tears. I can't keep wondering why the hell you matter to me, and abusing myself for caring about you. But I don't know how to do it. It's not in me to extinguish a love. I have sacrificed every part of myself at least once to avoid it. It has been the single thing I am unwilling to do. The one unwavering line in the sand. And I know where this leads- this trying to erase it. I know because I've tried, In pain, In desperation, to destroy a love before. And I couldn't do it. I threw more and more at it, unleashed every weapon I had. And by the end... I had caught the rest of me in the crossfire, and the only thing that remained untouched was that love. You need to go. But that will happen again if I try to uproot you from my soul. It is a humbling lot. A prideless realization. That I must wait. That I must serve the part of me that holds me captive, the only part of me I know as indestructible, The part that reigns because nothing can dethrone it. I must bow to it, because I like what else I am. I know that even if I tried with every ounce of courage and hatred I have built up over my years to demolish my love for you, the dust would clear, And it would be the only thing about me left. And I don't want it to be. I don't respect it enough to let it be my defining factor. And so I sit and stew and wait, for it to loosen its stranglehold, or for you to come back. It is a prideless thing. And I am a proud person. And it chafes every single day. And I swallow it, and go on.