I can never walk away from you. Not by the gods who all looked on as I ran out of reasons to make you stay. Not by the forget-me-nots I willed to die under my pillow. Not by the poems you never knew were yours. Between us, I can never be the first one who leaves because I'm terrified — of you, moving on to a life I'm not a part of. I'm terrified of confronting the choking weight of emptiness in cold mornings.

To walk away from this is something I never learned; that is my downfall and your strength. And I guess the difference between us is when I said that I was terrified of you leaving — when I said that I was terrified of losing you, I meant it.

I meant every word of it, my love — I meant every word that you did not.