do you know what hurts?
do you know what eats away at you
until you've been completely consumed?
leaving someone.
leaving someone you love.
leaving someone you care for so deeply
that the simple act of walking away seems to rip your heart in two.
leaving someone whose entire existence shaped your life
for one year,
two years,
ten years.
maybe you know that the life attached to him
wasn't the life that was best for you.
maybe that's why you're ending things.
maybe it's not.
it hurts and it tears and it burns,
but the one glimmer of hope to hold onto in the midst of all this pain
is found within a quick smattering of words.
they slip out before he's thought about them.
the saltwater they're mixed with only makes them stronger
and the gasping breaths they float away on only send them quicker to your ears.

                                               'i still want you in my life. i have to have you in my life.
                                                 even it it's just as a friend. you're the only one i've got.'

do you know what hurts?
do you know what re-ignites the pain
that sunk its teeth into you the day you had to say goodbye?
it's the moment he realized you weren't coming back.
the moment he realized you weren't wrong.
the moment he realized that the golden days of
******* you
were really and truly over.
after that enlightenment, friendship didn't matter,
history didn't matter,
you didn't matter.
suddenly, he didn't see any reason for you to be in his life at all.
you were far from best friends.
you cried and you bled and you mustered the courage
to be selfish for once in your life,
to let go for once in your life,
only to realize that you were nothing but a placeholder.
nothing but a body.

that's what hurts the most
and what will never stop hurting.