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By the end of this day, I should understand that it’s all really over. I should know, realize, and accept that my more than 10-year first love is not going to happen, even though this morning should’ve been the day we married. Because after all, it hits so hard in a language I have never known before, not even in the hardest period when everything crumbled. It just hurts so much. But I think I have cried my lungs out. And I think I have cried enough. Today is really going to end, and so will my almost.

Hey. I don't know if this will ever find you, or if it even should. But if it does, someday, or somehow, I hope by then, we can remember it all in a way that softens the edges of what we couldn't hold.  Before the beginning, I kept buying myself more time. Telling myself I needed it. More days, more weeks, more moments to understand you, to understand us, to think until I drowned, to stop thinking when it hurt too much, to feel what I kept denying, to forgive what I didn't want to admit, to quiet the storm inside, to loosen my grip, to finally let you go. But every time I said: not today, maybe later, maybe after the next small milestones. After we met. After a week. After your special day. After my birthday. After yours. After December 21. God, it stings just naming that date. And maybe I would keep doing that. Keep pushing the line further away, making excuses, inventing new deadlines just so I could write you back into existence. So I could keep you here, on the page, ev...

You never liked birthdays. I always wanted to celebrate you. Maybe that’s why we’re not here. It’s your birthday today. Last year, when the day ended, I told myself. Next year, I’d do better. Next year, you’d feel safer. I thought I could give you that. It’s your birthday today. I hope you’re kinder to yourself. Or maybe I’m still pretending I know what’s best for you. It’s your birthday today, and I still hope you heal. The kind that makes you believe. Or maybe I’m still arrogant to think I ever knew enough of you. It’s your birthday today. May your life be long. Your patience, your strength. Your feelings. The ones that make you laugh like the world’s still worth it, or the ones that push you to do whatever it takes. I really hope you find what’s yours. And it finds you. I hope nothing but the best, for you. Today is your birthday. Happy birthday.

But I searched too long. And I got freaked out. It terrified me, if I ever lost the last thread that ties me back. I remember telling myself it was a memory. It wasn’t. It was me. Locking the door in my head so he couldn’t leave again. I drag his shadow back every time it slips away. It’s still that much. Still that deep. Maybe I never forgot. Maybe I never even tried. Because forgetting means losing him twice. And I’m not ready for that. Oh, how do I live with this? Carrying the ghost I chose to keep.

Which one is better. When I was still afraid this would fall apart, or when I longed for that fear after it finally did. I told myself I’ve found the answer. I don’t want to go back, but I’d give anything to live it once more. I don’t want to keep imagining how it could have been, but I do want to keep replaying how it was. I want to let it go, but I keep myself coming back for one more glimpse. And I don’t know how to walk through this, or if walking through it is even possible. I just want to stop wanting.

Leave. Leave before I start wanting you back. Before my hands forget how to be empty. Go. Just go. Go faster. Tear yourself out of my chest. Take the sound of your name with you. I’m not drowning again. I will not go under again. Leave by tonight. No, leave now. Hurry. Leave far. Far enough that my body forgets your shape. Far enough that my mind loses your scent. Stop. Don’t knock on the hollow I’ve been living in. Please. Don't ever slip into my head again. It’s all that I have left. And if you do, I won’t even have the strength to hate you.

Under his raincoat, pressed against his back. The younger me was still learning how to want something without knowing how to keep it close. The last time, his fingers threaded through mine. We spoke about that rain, that day, the movie that night. Today, I’m here again. Carrying work as an excuse, though it keeps brushing against the memory I pretend not to touch. Back when us still felt possible. Back when I thought we’d grow old under the same black-and-white blanket. But now, the ache calls me by name. I know the shape of this tightness, how it swells inside my chest. Only this time, it doesn’t pierce clean through. It’s a long, blunt needle pressing deeper. Cruel enough to let me feel every ours that I’ve lost.

I've kept my eyes from chasing your name, taught my hands not to reach  for any trace of you. I thought I'd drawn the line.  Thought this might work. I tried to finish the feelings, patiently.  Sometimes still letting them stop by as if they might leave on their own.  I thought I could. I thought I'd grown. Then I saw you. Not on purpose.  Not in any way I could prepare for. And just like that, you tore through every wall I've been rebuilding.  Hole after hole. Until there was no wall at all. So what now? The gap cuts again. And God, I miss you so much, in a way that makes me unsure I could survive this twice. 

Today I read: “You won’t find the same person twice, not even in the same person.” And something in me sank. Because I knew I wasn’t holding on to him. I was holding on to the boy he used to be. The one who smiled like he meant it, the one who hadn’t yet learned to guard his heart so well. And maybe I stayed because I believed that version of him was just buried. For so long, I didn’t know who I was saying goodbye to. The person he became, or the version I kept alive in my memory. Maybe that’s the strangest part: How the love I lost feels more like a life I dreamt than one I lived. And maybe, just maybe, the grief isn’t about losing him. But finally letting go of the person he never promised to stay as. And I guess, now, that’s okay.

Not like the first. When everything shattered, and I let someone else carry what I didn’t know how to hold. Even if I wasn’t ready to let it go. Not like the second. When I still believed that loving harder might fix what was already broken. That if I gave more, you’d come back whole. Not because I’ve healed, too. Definitely not because it stopped hurting. But because even forgetting started to feel like pretending. This isn’t the first time I’ve lost you. But I guess this is the first time I’m not trying to win you back. Not by becoming someone you might’ve stayed for. I’ve tried all of it. I’ve rewritten memories. I’ve blamed timing. I’ve blamed myself. I’ve begged reality to bend. It didn’t. Because time moves fast but it wounds slowly. It only makes it easier to carry around in public. I still don’t know how far this goes. Or what healing is supposed to look like. I just know I’ve stopped chasing the end of it. And I don’t believe anymore that pai...

But I've stepped out of his gravity. There was a time I thought I'd shine brighter orbiting his. As if light only made sense when it came from his direction. Maybe now, I want to be the sea. Or maybe dust. A part of everything  and owed to no one.  Maybe a voice, a line between letters. Or a scent that lingers in the doorway, long after I've left. Maybe I just want to be human again. Someone ordinary. Someone allowed to feel joy without apologizing for it. Someone who still waits for good news without bracing for the worst. Who still hopes. Who forgets, and forgives herself, anyway. I still look at the sky. Mostly after dawn, when everything is hushed, and the prayers still hang in the air. He's probably shining somewhere else now. He always belonged  to a different sky than the one I could reach. And yes, some nights I miss him before I even realize I do. And some mornings, I still look for him out of habit. Glance upward as if he'd still be there. But I'm lear...

To all the reasons why there's always space for him in me.  Not because of some glimpse of us. Not because some memory slipped through. It's just because I missed what it felt like to keep him close. I traced the places we passed. Replayed the little habits, held again our loud, biggest shared dreams.  I pulled out the feeling  of meeting him for the first time, and every time after that. The memories came not in order. As if they, too, had been waiting to be felt again.  His presence.  The way he gave me time. His laughter. The one that melts everything numbed. The one I swore I would keep safe for as long as I could. So today, I remembered him fully. Not to make sense of why. Not to search for lessons in the loss. Not to ask what went wrong.  I just let myself remember him. And the way he made me fall again, and again, and again, and again. And as much as I've tried to accept what is, I still find it easier to explain why it was only ever him.

I miss him more in all the places we never got to go. In the taste of something new he’ll never ask about. In the songs he’ll never hear, even though I know he would’ve loved them. I remember him in every little update I can’t send anymore. How the world is shifting. How I’m changing with it. How I lost reality I never lived. It would be easier if he only existed in the past. If missing him meant sorting through our finished frames until it ran out. But I miss him more from what was never captured. On the other side of the life we almost had, I still miss us there.

I wasn’t crying before.

That part of my life. It no longer feels like mine. Not fully. Not in the way memories usually do. Like something I woke from but still remember in my body. Like something I recall but no longer exists. I remember the feeling. I remember how loud it was in my chest. But when I try to speak it, I wouldn’t know who to tell— not without it sounding like fiction. So I keep it locked in the farthest part of my mind. A room with no space and no light. A place where I store what I can’t afford to feel again. I don’t bother visiting it. I don’t call it by name. But it happened. It was mine. It was real. As real as anything I live now. And yet, now it feels too far to belong to me. Too vivid to be a lie. Too distant to still be true. A misplaced memory and outlier in my timeline. Too real. Too strange. Too unreal for something I once swore was mine.

Not for anything, definitely not for anyone. So when someone stayed, I held on like it was the only way to choose myself. Because in their choosing, I finally found a way to silence the part of me that always asked: what made me a bad choice? Even if all I ever offered was a version of me still waiting to be rescued from herself. You see. Letting go felt too brutal. Too empty. Too much silence to carry alone. What do you hold when you stop holding the only thing you know how to hold on to? So I stayed because I was terrified of what I’d find without them. Or maybe I was just tired. Of being disappointed in who I couldn’t be. And too tired to hate myself all over again. That’s why it took so long to finally stop. But hey, am all good today.

Not really. Just something unplanned, that turned out to be a beginning. This time, I freed myself from the duty of trying. From the duty to hold, to understand, to accept, question, answer, and wait for something that never once met me halfway. And for the first time in months after everything fell apart, I felt tired in a way that didn’t scare me. Like my body was finally allowed to stop bracing for impact. The fog isn’t gone. But it’s thinning. And though the way out is still sunless, I can feel it. I can feel that there is a way out. Yes, it’s the irony that stings. And the hypocrisy that burns. That I gave so much grace to everything. Except for myself. That I kept waiting to feel like I was worth staying for. When it was always me I kept abandoning. I don’t know how long this will take. How much of me I’ll have to rebuild. Or how many days will still taste like survival. But for now, this is enough. More than enough. Tomorrow can come when it does. Yesterday can stay where it bel...

Because time doesn’t grieve. It won’t move any faster, no matter how much I beg it to. It just moves steadily and unbothered. Not slow enough to let me hold what’s already gone. Not fast enough to help me forget you were ever here. Maybe time isn’t meant to help. Perhaps it’s just here to keep going, even when we can’t. And maybe that’s what makes it so hard. To live in a world where nothing pauses for what broke. Where everything continues, and we didn’t. I want to believe our hearts will stretch just enough to hold what hurt without breaking. That somehow, in this slow, heartless passing, we’ll still find something gentle to hold on to. I hope so. Even now. I still hope so.

I feel like I’m losing something a little more every day. On some nights, when I can’t sleep, it creeps in quietly. The fear. The more time passes, the further everything drifts, the closer I feel to losing it again. Even when there’s nothing left. I don’t know why letting go of something that isn’t here still feels like a risk. Maybe I’m scared that I’ll keep doing this. Or that I’m the reason this keeps repeating. I’m scared of my own patterns. Scared of the kind of future I can’t even picture. I don’t know what’s supposed to be there anymore. And so I sit in the dark. Not knowing what to pray for. The other nights, I try to shut myself up. Stop. Enough. You’re being too much again. Is this the kind of feeling that should’ve never been allowed to speak? Because my head hurts from fighting, thinking, judging, listening, blaming, trying to be kind to myself, in circles. All at once.

Maybe I only loved the possibility of being loved by you. And maybe it felt so real because I was the one pouring all this longing into someone who never asked to be held that way. They say, maybe I wasn’t loving you. Maybe I was begging myself to feel worthy through you. They say, it wasn’t love if it started from the wrong why . That maybe I wasn’t loving. I was seeking. I wanted to win you just once more, so I could rewrite all the versions of myself I never knew how to forgive. That I wanted your yes to undo all my no’s. That I needed you to make it make sense. But if it wasn’t real, then why do I still feel it in the deepest parts of my body? Why do I still flinch at the thought of someone else knowing your quiet? Why does it still feel like I’m leaving something I never meant to lose? I keep asking. Is it you I miss, or the story I wrote around you? Am I grieving you, or the person I thought I could become when I loved you? I don’t know how to tell the difference. But if I’m stil...

Patterns. Trauma. Boundaries. The art of staying without disappearing. But the more I see the harder it gets to forgive myself for not knowing sooner. Because now, I expect more from me. Like I should’ve known how to hold it all before it broke. Like I should’ve saved us from who we didn’t know we were becoming. And I can hear that small voice inside beggingly, asking me why love still feels like trying all alone? But even hearing that, makes me feel like I’ll never be enough. Because I know happiness is mine to build. So is my safety. So is my healing. So is love. But mantras don’t mute the pain. And knowing doesn’t mean you know how to stop digging the very hole you keep trying to crawl out of. I keep learning. I keep almost falling. I feel like walking a tightrope. Standing steady, with cliffs waiting on both sides. And maybe that’s the hardest part. That even now, I still don’t know how to stop breaking under the weight of trying. I still don’t know how to save myself from me.

There were too many things that went wrong. Or maybe, they weren’t even mistakes. Just questions with answers too big for two people in love to carry. They say love has its logic. That psychology could explain why you and I were always almost. That science could map the patterns of why we never aligned. That faith might’ve told us how to stay, if only we’d listened. But none of it made it any easier. Maybe it could’ve been different if I had understood more, sooner. If I had known how to hold you without holding you back, and how to love you without losing myself. Maybe then, we wouldn’t have fallen through all the cracks. But I didn’t. And now, all I can do is wake up each day trying to be better than I was when I still had you. I want to believe there’s wisdom  in what we couldn’t carry.  That He doesn’t give a love this deep without reason. And that we’ll meet the best of His plan. But didn’t this feeling, too, exist with His permission? Then, is there a maybe that we could...

Slowly, without asking to bloom again. I’ll try to stop searching for you in places I know you no longer are. I’ll try to let you go without waiting for you to come back with the answer I once hoped you’d find. I’ll try to feel all of it. The disappointment, the anger, and the sorrow. Even if I still understand why it all had to break. I’ll try not to reach for a version of us that never learned how to stay again. I’ll try to accept that this was the very last page. I’ll try to say no when my heart begs to remember you one more time. And I’ll try to stop looking for a new way to love you from afar. And I’ll learn to do it better. Day after day after day.

Because today, I still love you. Maybe it’s not even you anymore, but the version of you I kept safe in my head. Maybe that’s why the feeling still stays like they haven't heard the news. Because I keep thinking. Maybe you were just as lost, and just as hurt. That maybe the only reason we bled was because we didn’t know how else to hold our pain. And so the words we said only sounded like weapons. I keep thinking that someday, you’ll find answers you haven’t yet found the words for. And I once wondered: is it love when we believe in it, or is it love when we accept what it never was? I still don’t know. But I do know this: I still check in on you. Still care about things you won’t share. Still wonder about how your heart is doing today. So maybe not now. Because now, you still live somewhere in me. Even when you’ve long been gone. And maybe not yet. Because there are things I still want to write. Yours, I still want to hold space for. And this one thing I still want to say: I still...

Every word before it was said. Every shift before it arrived. But now, that knowing leads nowhere. It’s trapped inside you. Restless, useless. You know the signs. You see the shifts. You feel the ending, the anger, the hate, pressed between words. But what can you do with all that knowing? Because the world you memorized before it ever spoke a word, now moves on its own. And even when you still understand every sign, hope, silence and mess, there’s nothing left to reach for. You can’t even let it be something. It comes in waves, big and small. And sometimes, the smaller ones hurt even more. Because those you go looking for. You just don’t understand anything anymore.

 This is hard. It’s just really hard.

Either a reason to stay, or a reason to leave. A truth to uncover, or a wound to let go. A place for chance, or a way back home. Even at every crossroads, I always found a new direction. Because somewhere, somehow, I believed we’d meet again. Maybe for closure. Maybe for clarity. Maybe because I just wanted it to be. But now, knowing— truly knowing— that we were meant to end, has left something in me unheld. I keep reaching for something I can’t name. I keep searching, but there’s no thread to follow back. I find explanations, but they don’t fill my chest. I find clarity, but it fogs over just the same. Maybe what I’ve lost isn’t just him. But the version of me who always knew what to do with the hope of him, in a life that used to make sense. Maybe what I’ve lost are all the reasons I stood still for so long. Now, I just don’t know how to stay, how to move, how to be okay, or not be okay, without a reason pointing me somewhere he might be.

It’s not a splintered collapse. Not a loud shattering. Not a flood crashing in to drown everything at once. It’s an emptied space inside you, growing wider by the day, pressing against your ribs, your throat, your will to keep going. You can’t fight it. You can’t fix it. You can’t even name it. But it settles in your spine. It’s not loud. It’s slow. It’s steady. Suffocating. Like your own body forgetting how to hold itself up. It doesn’t make you hurt to breathe. Maybe it’s just because you don’t breathe the way you used to.

At the corner where I said I’d moved on, my mind still makes room for him. Maybe I’ve accepted that he left. Maybe I’ve even stopped waiting. But the ghost of him still knows how to find me, right when I think I’ve forgotten the sound of his name in my chest. Maybe it’s the wound still mid-healing. The part of me trying to remember how safe it once felt. The kind of remembering that ruins all the metaphors I built. The one that said, none of them stands a chance against what we once were. Maybe it’s the part of me that doesn’t want to be wise, or rational, or healed. Or maybe it’s just the smallest, most stubborn voice, curled up in the dark. The one still whispering his name like it’s a secret, it doesn’t want to give up. A part that just wants to love him. Maybe it’s a selfish voice. Maybe it always was. But whatever it is, can you please get out of my head?

I’ve loved you in all the wrong ways— wrongly, messily, painfully. And maybe that’s not how we were ever meant to love each other. But there’s no other lifetime, no alternate universe where we get to try again. So I hope we both learn how to love better, even if it’s no longer for each other. And still as messy as before, now I’m learning to let us go, too.

It already passed the moment we said hello again. And it will pass through the happiest days, and the ones that weigh a little heavier. Eventually, the time I spent counting will slip by too. Seeing him again taught me that I'm allowed to be loved. And maybe, that’s exactly why we had to end. So I could learn that I can be loved by myself, too. And if one day this writing ever finds him, I just want to say, Thank you. For all of it.

The first time we broke up, I remember saying— I would never be able to let him go if the person next to him wasn’t me. It sounds like something you’d say in the middle of a quiet obsession. I know that now. But at the time, being with him felt like home. And losing him, felt like losing the only place I could return to. I didn’t see then. Some part of that “home” was built from how he showed up when I was far from my family, and far from my own self. Even when we ended, I still knew I’d meet him again someday. Though now I wonder. Was that knowing, a memory, a wish, or just a prayer in disguise? And when I did meet him again, and then lose him again, I found myself asking: Was loving him something I knew, something I wanted, or something I was still praying for? Was I in love with him, or just with the idea of being with him? Isn’t wanting to be with someone a form of love, too? Why, then, could I never picture a life without him, even if it terrified me while...

At first, I couldn’t understand. How two people who love each other deeply could still hurt just the same. How we could both feel seen and unseen, and loved and not quite right, at the same time. If I felt unloved gently, shouldn’t he have felt like he wasn’t enough? If he felt too much, shouldn’t I have felt left behind? I thought maybe what I felt should explain what he felt, that our aches should be the answers to each other. But they weren’t. Somewhere along the way, we both learned to listen more to ourselves. Maybe it was the way we mirrored thoughts, the way it all clicked, the way he understood me in ways no one else ever did— that was also the very reason we couldn't stay. Like a pair of shoes with two right feet. So close. But not meant to walk together. Yet somehow, I found comfort in knowing he’ll be loved better by someone who fits just right. His left. His match. And so, I feel relieved in the oddest way.

Not just one bad night. Not just one big disagreement. It was disappointment growing slowly in the silence where we should’ve spoken. It was misunderstanding left unchecked, until it hardened into distance. It was forgiveness given, but never fully felt. It was the same wound being touched in the same place, too many times. What broke us wasn’t sudden. It was the familiar way we kept circling back to the same pain with different words. It was one fight that led to another and another. And each explanation started to feel like both a reason and a goodbye. I was stuck in my frustration. So was he. I kept searching for something to fix, something to understand, to offer, while quietly wishing he would see me the way I needed to be seen. Because I knew him too deeply to ever unknow him. He had been too much of me, too much in me, for me to stand on my own without trembling. So much of my world had learned to orbit his. For so long, he was the gravity that kept me from floating away. On...

I spoke to him about what we both carried, what we once hoped for, and what we still wished for the years ahead. We agreed: there were mistakes. But also, so much we misunderstood. We felt the same thing. That strange, familiar sense of being meant for each other. So we chose to try again. This time, to build something lasting. And I believed everything that happened was our way of trying to bring love into form. Me, in my way, him, in his. But then I learned: loving someone deeply doesn’t always mean you feel loved in return. Because there were days I longed for his gentleness, even when I understood his reactions were shaped by wounds I left behind. Days we couldn’t meet in the middle, and I tried to hold space for the ways our histories shaped us. Days I felt guilty when I couldn’t keep up, even when I knew he only asked for things meant to help me grow. Then he also grew weary, watching me falter in the same places. There were times he gave, he tried, and he got hurt by the noise o...

I thought I was okay. Or at least, better than before. I thought I could see things with a clearer heart. How we unraveled, how it all came disconnected. I thought I could be grateful just because he was with me for a while. I thought I could feel peace, knowing he’s living the life he always wanted. I really thought I could. But some nights, the same truth screams louder. That we’re strangers again. And I still don’t know which hurts more. The idea that he would let go of me, or that he never wanted to, but had to. I still don’t know which weighs heavier. That he might be haunted by our memories like I am, or that he remembers me as a chapter long closed. I don’t know which ache runs deeper. That we were a rare eclipse, but only passing for a moment, or that no matter what happens, the universe will lead us to the right ending, even if that ending isn’t us. I thought maybe, this was how I’d finally learn to let him go. To find a new kind of safety. To come home to myse...

It's past the time we promised each other back then.

It felt like finding each other all over again. And this time, we didn’t want to let go, again. I knew what I wanted. And the more I was with him, the more I wanted it to last. If someone asked, "Why him?" I wouldn’t have a clear answer. Sometimes it was the peace. Sometimes the ease. Sometimes the way it felt like enough. Sometimes, there were no words at all. When I asked for the best to come find me, only when I was finally ready— he came. And he became everything I had written at the start of the year. He answered what I had been restless about, and questions I didn’t know I’d been asking. He brought back something I thought I had lost for good. I loved who I was when I was with him. And I loved that he was there with me. There were so many little moments quite and fleeting, that made me look at him and silently pray, “If he’s the one, please let him stay.” But I also knew, I was never ready for what would happen, if the answer turned out different. Still, even with all t...

But only lately did I realize the way I saw home also depended on how I first defined it. And all I knew back then was that he was my first love. So love, had to look like him. Or at least, that was the only kind I ever allowed myself to receive. Love, I thought, had to last. Had to be fought for. Had to never be lost again. In my eyes, he never stopped being the boy I first knew. Even after all our talks about growing older, about pain we carried, about how we learned to survive, he still looked like that boy who used to walk me home from school. The boy I loved so gently. I thought, that must be real love. To love someone just as they are. To ask for nothing. To simply be glad to be beside him again. Then one day, I caught myself feeling guilty for considering what I needed, instead of what he wanted. Guilty for feeling. Guilty for wanting time. Guilty for explaining so carefully, so softly, just so he wouldn’t hurt, even when I was the one struggling to breat...

I wrote many endings for us. Me—finally able to walk away. Me—finally able to forgive. Me—angry. Us—agreeing, once and for all, to close the door gently. I even imagined every possible path that could lead to each ending. I thought I was prepared. But if I’m honest, a part of why I came back, was because I knew I might see him again. And even after rehearsing every scene a thousand times, my heart still raced when one finally became real. There were too many questions at the start of our third beginning. Why did I come back? If we tried again, would it last? Did I never move on because it was unfinished? Or because my heart always came back to him? What made this time any different? Was I meant to end it, clearly and finally? Or was this another chance for us? What really happened before? What happens now? But months later, as we talked about that day we met again, he said that, I was the one who smiled so wide when our eyes met again. And so I took back what I once said: That I was ev...

I meant it. Year after year, I kept making excuses to reach out or at least to leave a small sign that I was still here, still waiting in the same place. And then, it was February. We spoke again, the way we always do. Finding our way back like we never really left. But it was me, again, coming forward with another excuse, trying to stretch a made up conversation into another possibility. Why did I always do that? All I know is: at the end of the day, my heart always chose him. Not because he was everything but because, maybe, he just felt more right. So I asked the one with the sincere heart to stop giving. Because there was still a story I hadn’t finished. Or perhaps, one I still didn’t want to finish. What I didn’t realize was how the guilt already rooted, would only grow taller, heavier, and wilder. I told that heart the truth, because I didn’t want to hurt anyone anymore. But then the guilt doubled. And somehow, I felt responsible for keeping the heart ok...

Then I met someone new. A kind, sincere heart, who never asked for anything. In a short time, and in the simplest way, he showed me I was more than enough. No questions. No demands. He was just, there. We talked about everything. Politics, childhood, dreams, faith, and love. But even then, something in my head wouldn’t stop. It laughed at me, said I should’ve known better. That I should’ve focused on myself. That I had no right to feel anything at all. And if I kept going, he’d see the truth that I’m not all that good. When I chose to receive, my mind whispered, isn’t it cruel to give him false hope? So I forced myself to feel ready. To receive. To give. To become. But still, I sabotaged it. I felt guilty for receiving, and guilty for refusing. Guilty for silence. Guilty for speaking. Whatever I did, even in my thought, my head always found a way to blame me for it all.

It was a fine morning, when I woke up and wrote down everything I still dared to want. How I wished to see myself by year’s end. The work I would do, the home I would build, and the kind of person, I hoped would be the last I would ever love. They say prayers work best when they are specific. So I gave mine shape. I made it whole. But I guess I forgot to ask, for the courage to meet it when it arrives.

I’m sorry I couldn’t write anything tonight. I miss him.  

It was a hard year for me. I walked through harassment, and was asked to understand that it was normal, that it was nothing. I, who had always felt like I hurt others, finally built a belief so deep inside me, that I was a bad person, that I didn't matter. So, I tried again. I tried to love again. I tried to prove to myself that I was good enough. I believed my worth was tied to how much I was loved, and how well I could love in return. I became afraid of being the bad person I feared I was, and so I gave in. I nodded, I accepted. I lost my boundaries. Especially with myself. I fell into the same cycle. The need to be loved, and the fear of being abandoned. I was dependent, and at the same time, shutting myself down.

I spent my days trying to learn how to feel comfortable again. Trying to belong inside my own life, once again. Yet somehow, it felt strange to be seen. I felt guilty, and wrong, and unfair. At that time, I didn’t even know why. But looking back now, maybe there were many things underneath it. At first, I thought it was because I never truly let him go. Not even from the very beginning. But if I’m more honest, maybe it was because I let myself drown in my own sins. And so I didn’t believe I was worthy. And before I could even name it, the guilt turned into fear. I became afraid of anyone who seemed to care. I enjoyed the affection, but it couldn’t fill the hollow inside me. I grew anxious, afraid they would one day find out how terrible I was. So I didn’t step away slowly, or leave gently. I cut the cord the moment they came too close. I panicked. I froze. I trembled. And then, I ran. Hurting more hearts, and carrying the shards with me.

It felt so good, meeting him once more. He smiled and we promised, never to leave each other ever again. I cried a lot, thinking I had won him back, or maybe myself back. But somewhere along the way, my wounds had grown selfish. I no longer wanted to try. I just wanted to know: did he love me enough? more than I had ever loved him? There was a choice to heal what we carried, or to honor what we had. But I chose the road that tore everything apart. I turned us into a measure, into a give and take, a game of bets and payoffs. I loved him, only to see if he would love me more. It was when it felt like he couldn’t, or wouldn’t, that I made my vows. I promised to abandon him first. I promised to forget him. I promised, this time, to try and hate him.

After that, I tried to love again. I tried to prove to myself that I was still capable of loving, that I still had something to give. I forced myself to dig up feelings from a tank that had long run dry. But I always stopped halfway. Not too close, not too far. Just enough to feel something, never enough to let it grow. I always found a way to leave. Even when nothing was wrong. And when I was the one left behind, I didn’t even flinch. Because somewhere in my chest, the room was never cleared. It stayed his. As it had always belonged to him. So in my own quiet way, I searched for him again.

I stopped showing up for myself. I didn't really care about anything, but everything bothered me. I stopped trying, and kept asking why. I let everything pass me by, but everything stung. Everything stayed. I welcomed anyone who came close, opened the gate wide, with warm, bitter eyes. And I kept the door shut. I built the wall myself. I couldn't love again. I didn’t want to love someone else.  But I longed to be loved, to be reminded that I was still worthy. So I kept seeking it, even when I had no space to give it back. Even when I was running on empty. I could breathe a little easier, just knowing someone cared for me. That someone could still see me through the noise, through the mess. It was like, even if the world spun too fast, They still chose to offer me a little mercy.  I was hurt. And knowing that, I hurt others. I was tired. And I was tiring to love. Still, I clung to the version of me that only existed when I was with him. And the version of him...

It only got worse every time we tried again. I feel like, we built our first heartbreak through repeated hurt and unspoken expectations. We kept trying to hold onto something that had already changed. But maybe, deep down, I was trying to keep us so I wouldn't have to face myself. I didn't know that the longer it dragged on, the more it wore us thin. It was like tying a frayed rope, only to pull it tighter until it snapped, and then tying it again, and again, until there was nothing left but thread. The pain piled up, until we both gave up. Maybe even love couldn’t find its way back in. And somewhere in that loss, I lost myself even more. I began to believe I was unlovable. That I was incapable. That I wasn’t built for it. That I wasn’t enough, and would never be worthy. I hated myself for breaking. Then I hated myself more for not being able to stand up again. I hated myself for everything I tried, and I couldn’t. My chest ached, my breath shallow, my head spinning, my ...

Back then, I never really learned how to live far away from the place I called home. In fact, I barely understood my own circumstances, because I never really paused to think about them. I remember keeping myself busy. Making new friends, pursuing ambitions, crying in silence. I didn’t realize how hard it was. I was just living. Surviving. He was my one and only. And before I knew it, I became overly dependent. From loving to spend more time, to clinging so tightly that I needed him around all the time. From giving my inner world, to becoming overly sensitive to even the smallest shift. I held onto my own version of him, and refused to let it go. Until we both grew tired of each other. I kept searching for external validation, for protection, for constant adoration. And that made him feel like he no longer mattered. And it made me feel like I was no longer worthy. That was the first time, I turned my sunshine into my first nightmare.

I used to call him a big white bear. My big white bear. He was this big, chubby boy who walked around like he didn’t even care about how the teenage world worked around him. But when he laughed, he had this bright, sunshine laugh. As if he lived in a world of his own, with his friends, speaking a language only they understood. He was kind. And funny. A shy-shy boy, but brave enough to ask my parents for permission before he asked me to go out. He held his pride, but he is also the one who checked in on me, introduced me to his big, warm family, planned little birthday surprises, brought me chocolates and roses, and waited for me so we could go home together. I didn’t know much about love back then. But all I knew was, he made me the happiest.

Because for as long as I can remember, he never left me by myself. Not even once. He always made sure to treat me gently, to care for my needs, completely. He never raised his voice. Never dismissed my hand. He took me to beautiful places, and to the ordinary ones that meant just as much. He stayed by my side. And when he couldn’t, he always found his way back to me. He remembered every little thing about me, and made sure I’d always say, “I’m happy.”  He was there. He always was. And I really am happy. But it was me who couldn’t believe he was mine. It was me who couldn’t stop thinking he’d leave someday. So I kept proving myself. Kept trying, hiding, shrinking. I lost myself, trying to prove my love for him. When all I ever needed was to love him back. I brought the wounds I never truly faced, believing that being with him could make everything easier. And it was. But the untreated, unaddressed ache became a heartless resistance, one thing he never, ever deserved. And...

It’s okay. It will be alright.

I’ve spent days and nights trying to understand what others feel, what they do, why, and how. I keep holding space for them, more and more, because I thought it would hurt them more if I didn’t. I might have run out of space for myself. So I just sit with it. Or crumble with it.  I let it scream. And I honor its silence.

Then you continue living, barely.

Slowly crashing in. Flooding your chest, your skin, your thoughts.

And your heart burns slowly, as slow as the heat rising.

I don’t want to be the storm I’ve been trying to survive. But I think I’m falling apart.

I guess my body is crying in place of me.

It was red, dots on the porcelain, coming from my abdomen.

please

Because I can hardly breathe, and my head is drowning

Oh, I wish I could ask for help

Unlike the kind of wound you're trying to befriend. How do you explain a pain that chokes the air from your lungs? As strange as it sounds, this one is getting sicker.

It doesn’t ask for permission. It doesn’t wait for your grief to settle, or for your ache to quiet down. It doesn’t care if your breath is still heavy. It calls when you think you’re ready, and hits when you least expect it. You can’t just leave, but you’ve already lost your place. You keep remembering the things you wish had never become memories. Can pain really grow like this?

Ten years passed and infinite years lived in hope. I wonder, how does spelling it out come so easily to you?

When there’s no one around, no tasks to finish, no scripts to write, no songs to sing, or nothing left to think about. I’m still not okay when I give myself the time, even if it’s just to let the weight linger.

It’s almost sunny, nearly cloudy, but clear enough for me to see.  That I was never asking for much.  I was happy. I was grateful. I wanted to be ready.  Loving you was never meant to be an investment.  But maybe, deep down, it was a poor form of self-worth.  A way of trying to prove I was enough.

It would’ve been easier if you had just stopped loving me. Or if it had been unapologetically my fault. But the fact that  it was us, two people who still couldn’t see each other, who kept choosing different paths, no matter what lifetime we were in, somehow brings me a kind of truth,  in the most miserable way. Maybe because, at some point,  we both cared too much to keep breaking each other. At least,  we could agree on that part,  couldn’t we?

I  don’t want to let him go. I don’t want him to ever let me go.

The rest of the night stretches on,  as if finally granting its seconds, to the two people wondering, or maybe realizing,  that they couldn’t heal in the same place they got hurt.

Now what do you do when your pillar crumbled down You've lost all solid ground Both dreams and demons drowned And this void's all you've found And doubts light it aglow?

I wish I could have met you sooner, so I’d have had more time to learn how to fully see you.

Maybe it came from how scared I was to need you, because I was even more scared of losing you, The moment our eyes met, again.

An inconstant Sunday.  A humid morning, heavy rain in the afternoon, sunlight sneaking back in, and a soft drizzle by nightfall. As if the weather couldn’t make up its mind either. I looked at him. Searching for any detail I might’ve missed.  Maybe a hidden dimple, a faint scar, a freckle I overlooked.  But worse luck, I already knew everything.  I had memorized it all. All too damn freakin' well.

Because it’s starting to feel like an ending.  The way it shifted from numbness into emptiness, and how emotion has been shaped into choices.  Still, at the end of this day, I think, I can finally feel sad.

And maybe it's luck when both hearts choose each other.  

Is that why my chest feels so heavy, even when I distance myself from my own feelings?

It scares me. The thought of how real reality is. The absence is getting more vivid.  Like a surreal state where nothing remains, yet I can still see how it was supposed to be seen. How can I stop my feelings from staying the same? How do I catch up with the speed of time,  to keep up with this reel of imageless frames that feel undeniably real? How can I move through the moments I was never ready to let go of? Can I ever undo what I once knew as mine?

I already understood that sometimes, the kind of love we think is “enough” to love someone isn’t always what’s enough to love ourselves. But do you know why knowing so much makes it feel worse than ever? Because it doesn’t fill the space they left. It doesn’t hold your hand. It doesn’t say “I choose you” back. It doesn’t sit beside you when you’re feeling too much. It doesn’t undo the absence. It’s hard. Really hard. To be torn between feeling too much and nothing at all. It’s like I can see myself—while I, myself, am floating. In this heavy, foggy place where peace hasn’t arrived, but hurting feels too familiar to leave behind.

Yea, I know. I know Trump keeps sending more assault rifles to Israel. That more Palestinian lives are reduced to numbers in historical reports. I know his latest policies, just like I know the rupiah keeps falling, the ballistic missile in Russia, the 200 still missing beneath Myanmar’s rubble. I know the rise, and maybe the fall, of the art world too. I know the world keeps spinning. Like the principle of causality. The causes and effects, the chain of everything that was, is, and will be. I know the world keeps spinning. Even when everything feels like it’s falling apart, time keeps dragging us forward. And maybe, someday, what’s meant to be will find its way back. Yea, I know. The world spins on its own track. And most of the time, everything feels too fast and too slow. Too loud and too quiet. Too clear and too blurry. New projects. New heartbreaks. Same people. Same dreams. I see myself walking a never-ending path toward the crossroads of timelines, dimensions, emotions....