you have been permanent in my life the second i told myself that ready or not, i will love you with all of myself and everything i have and didn't

and often

i wonder if your permanence have been finally stamped on by us leaving each other

like a box sealed tight with packing tape, ready to be delivered somewhere with destination

or a gift ribboned to be given to the one who actually should have it in the first place

on days i see you happy with the people you've been with after me and still with until now

i feel that deep love for you again

and no, it doesn't hurt as much as before

but it's still there, merging with a lot of feelings you didn't even know are possible to exist simultaneously

—of pain

the kind of pain you get when you badly miss something—someone—and you know that things have gone the way they should be and you learned a lot from it and you understand it now

but somehow, this

this is both a lesson and a heartbreak in one

there are still days that i let myself think that we could have done it, we could have gotten through it, and then 'only if' crawls its way behind that phantasm

i have accepted, really accepted, the fact that friendships come and go

that every fall out leads you to stumble into something that gives you more possibilities than before

that every pain is there to remind you that you got this and that you're going to get better, maybe not exactly on the time you want to be but soon, when every part of your being can breathe again without getting too much or too less oxygen but either way still leaves you gasping for breath

—of loneliness

the one that can only be felt when you laid everything to that person and felt like you've never been braver before and now, you don't know if you have enough left to be that fierce person again, to have that fire in you that both that person and you adore

loneliness always comes knocking at my door, most especially at times when the night is so silent and my head can't help but mirror my heart's content—filled with everything about that person

i understand that with surrendering my whole being comes with giving everything i have at my arsenal, that love will always come both ways: strength and weakness; happiness and sadness; determination and loss of will; courage and fear; love and pain

i get it

the twists and turns, the crooks and corners of everything where love and myself and that person is involved

but

i have been meaning to ask all those who have their heart broken the first time . . .

will i always carry this dull ache in my heart?