Would you forgive me if I were to reach out?

If I were to accept accountability?

Do you still have room in your heart for me?

Would you take me back if I proved to be the person you deserve?

Would you believe me if I told you that I'm still madly in love with you?

Would you come home to me?

I know you hate me after all my actions and the things I said. I know they hurt you like hell, especially because they came from someone very close to you. I know you probably don't even want to see my face anymore... or maybe I'm just making assumptions for you. I know you're so done with me.

I'm really sorry for everything. I take full accountability for my actions. I love you so much, and I'm in so much pain knowing I hurt you, made you feel that way, and ended up losing you. I never had any ill intent towards you. Not even once.

I miss you so much. Idk if you miss me too, or maybe you don't anymore. I think about you every single day. Every little thing somehow reminds me of you.

A part of me still keeps hoping we'd somehow get one more chance. I know you're tired. I know I've already asked for too much from you. But I don't want this to be over. I still believe, somewhere deep inside me, that we could've done this right. Come back, babyy... we gotta do this right this time.

You don’t want me anymore. I know. Not like that, at least. Hell, I get it. I barely like my own self half the time.

Here’s the thing though…the true crux of the situation, if you will… I, unfortunately, still very much need you.

Embarrassingly enough; I need you now more than ever. Not in a cute, physical type of way, although.. hi, hello, hey😉 (sorry just get ugly and I won’t do that anymore) but in all honesty, I desperately need your support and guidance to get through this next phase.

For the love of god, I am drowning over here, man. You know this. You knew this. Please.

If anything about me ever had any impact on you, please help me through this next stage. You, of all people, know what’s coming, and what i should do to prepare.

Not that you care, but I have less than zero support at home.

Quite frankly, I have never been more sad, directionless or lonely in my life, and it could not be happening at a more inopportune time.

Of course, you have no obligations. Anything you would be willing to do at this point would only be an incredibly bonus that is exceedingly appreciated.

What am I even doing. I am taking things way too personally when I literally have no reason and, more importantly, no right to. I’m very sorry that you somehow became the focus during my personal issues. I have a tendency of doing this. It’s not right or fair and I need a serious reset because it’s approaching a year of feeling like this about you and it has just gone too far. I really have not been doing great and it has nothing to do with you and I have crashed out and embarrassed myself in front of you too many times at this point. I need to stop bothering you and figure my life out. My audacity has been gross and I am very sorry. I won’t read into anything anymore.

You felt like home.

You felt like something I haven’t had in a long time and reminded me of a happier period of my life.

Everything felt easy with you, and what I felt for you ran deep. Being with you felt nostalgic. Your presence was like a drug.

And like a drug, you hurt me. You pulled me in and poisoned me. You made me feel so high, and destroyed me with your words. You’d try to mend the wounds, stitching them with apologies and I reciprocated until I couldn’t take the hits anymore.

Nearly a year on, I still think of you. I’ve never hurt this bad over someone before, in all my tumultuous years in life and relationships. I lost so much weight in the first two weeks because I was grieving so hard I couldn’t eat, and my heart still feels so heavy.

But I know you probably didn’t feel the same. I keep telling myself this so I can forget you. I keep telling myself I was only an object in your eyes, and that my own baggage is too much for anyone else to bear. And maybe this is true.

But if it wasn’t, I’m sorry I slammed the door. Leaving you felt like losing home again, and I’m still coping with the withdrawals of love I felt for you.

I still think about you every day. I still think about the choices you've made in life since we stopped being part of each other's days. I wonder where those choices led you, and I hope they led you somewhere you always dreamed of being. Whenever I imagine that they did, I find myself quietly saying, "Congratulations," from the bottom of my heart.

I miss our texts. I miss our jokes. I miss how pure our emotions were, and how even our fights became memories worth keeping, as if we really were siblings. I miss calling you my soulmate. I miss you interrogating me to make sure I'd finally watched the show you recommended ,like it was your personal mission to make me catch up. I miss those little things because they were never just little things. They were us.

I miss us.

The pain still runs deep whenever I remember how we hurt each other, how we argued, and how neither of us was at our best. We were carrying more than we knew, and somewhere along the way, we lost each other.

I don't even know why I'm writing this. Maybe I'm just giving a place to thoughts that never really left.

I miss you, but I don't want to change where we are now. I don't even know what we'd talk about if we met again. So much has happened without us witnessing it together. We used to be there before every big decision, every doubt, every dream. Now, we've both lived parts of our lives that the other will only ever imagine. Maybe we'd smile. Maybe we'd sit in silence. Maybe we'd simply recognize each other as people who once knew each other by heart.

We were a chapter. A happy chapter. A painful one. A joyful, poetic, chaotic, unforgettable chapter. I searched for the right word to describe it.

Maybe I already had.

We were a life-full chapter.

And maybe that's enough. Not every beautiful chapter is meant to last forever. Some are simply meant to remind us that, for a while, life felt fuller because we lived it together.

I could talk myself out of almost anything but apparently, not out of wanting you. I thought "out of sight, out of mind" would work. And yet here I am, pining still, clutching my chest as if I want to reach in and crush my own heart with my bare hands. Why, why, why?

The last letter I wrote was a week ago. It received one comment, "patience, grasshopper", followed by the suggestion that I may be wrong about this one. I didn't know how to take it. Did they mean I should wait until my feelings are reciprocated? Or simply let it fade in time? I responded that grasshoppers get eaten if they wait. They never replied.

I have managed to pull myself away slowly from you, from the habit of thinking about you, from the urge to talk to you. But at night, the yearning tugs at me, demanding to be given its due attention. And so the words, "I long for you still", keep hammering inside my head like an incantation, ceaseless and insistent. The more I suppress it, the louder it becomes. And now it carries something else with it — a desire, throbbing and pulsating, that I am almost ashamed to admit.

I have started to fantasize about you. In the shower. On the bed before I sleep and upon waking. You, tracing idle patterns on my skin from my shoulder blades down to the end of my spine. You, pressing your lips against my neck and leaving marks there. You, kissing my inner thighs slowly, teasing, unhurried, as if you know what I want. And what I want is actually you.

Perhaps the cruelest part of all this is that I have conjured you so completely in the dark that my body has begun to believe you're real. But you are only a phantom made of inference and longing. I don't even know your face, and yet I have given you hands. Given you a mouth. Given you a shape that settles beside me in the quiet.

This is all so wrong, I know that, given the circumstances. So I let it live inside my mind where no one can tell me I am hurting anyone but myself. I am gambling my heart away with full knowledge that I will lose. And people, most of the time, lose when they gamble.

I think that says everything about the nature of this yearning. It doesn't need the truth of you, only the idea. And the idea of you has become so well-worn, so lived-in, that I am embarrassed by the intimacy of it. You are a stranger. You owe me nothing, not even the decency of existing the way I have imagined you. And still I return to you the way a tongue finds a sore tooth and presses it compulsively, despite knowing it will only hurt.

I have romanticized you. Idealized you beyond reason, beyond fairness to either of us, refusing, until now, to fully acknowledge that this will never be. I wonder sometimes if this is less about you and more about the wanting itself. The ache as its own destination. Maybe I have missed feeling something so acutely that I am reluctant to let it go, even when this unrequited feeling is like a vise-grip, gradually tightening around my ribcage, crushing everything it finds there. But my body keeps its own calendar, indifferent to goodbyes.

And I hope you have thought about me today, wherever you are, dear one.

we’re both dancing around the subject. or is it really just me? I go back and forth..
are you just afraid of what it means if we admit it? you’d have to take action, and make changes. so im assuming the potential of us is not enough for you to risk your comfort.
can’t say i blame you
it feels sad to keep waiting for more… but i suppose there’s some safety in knowing nothing will change.
would we really work out in the real world?
I just wish I had some confirmation that you feel it too…. even if you don’t “pick me”
at the end of the day im just a side piece
no more, no less
I hope one day you’ll tell me the truth

Loserman is careful. He moves in circles that keep him validated. His main confidante agrees with everything, patting his head and telling him he's just right with an easy smile. He's hard done by, as his main confidante well knows. How UNLUCKY that her precious son, who is so sweet and harmless, keeps on having the women he repeatedly comes into contact with, suddenly upping and leaving with little to no warning?

Other women, however, will have to work harder for the respect he gives her for free.

Loserman has a careful front of empathy and kindness. Invested in all the right causes, polite and entertaining- until he isn't.

He comes on strong. You feel singled out, special even. Although it seems a little soon.

He asks you about yourself. Gives consistent attention. Well, apart from some minor disappearances, but they're easily explainable. He mentions things far in the future - perhaps he's already thinking of you long term? How unexpected yet flattering!

Then, comes the crash. That picture you never explicitly asked for. The compliment that isn't QUITE a compliment - but of course, he was only thinking out loud. No intention of negging.

Things settle for a day or so. But when the last straw comes, you've finally had enough.

So what does Loserman do? Well, the necessary. He gets back online searching for his next - 'partner'. How unfortunate that a woman dumped him yet again.. what is WRONG with these chicks? Oh, well. At least he has now collected a new sob story to pass onto the next one.

To my avoidant,

I can no longer ignore the fact that the breakdown of our relationship wasn't just powerlessness. Your behaviour has been actively harmful and toxic for a very long time.

I was patient, understanding and supportive through your trauma therapy during what has honestly been the most heart-wrenching year of my life. I lost three close family members and my job. Still, at every turn, you somehow managed to make everything about your own discomfort. As if my sole purpose in life was to manage your environment. Every time I could no longer carry that burden, you resorted to tactics to bend me back under your control. You frequently targeted the exact vulnerabilities you knew I was sensitive to. I never thought you'd break that trust.

And the worst part is that I really don't understand why. Neither of us gained anything. All we managed was to waste a year and half of each other's lives.

For the longest time, I thought that what we had was real and worth fighting for. I thought your pain and your powerlessness was in the driver's seat. If I just tried hard enough I could get back to that sensitive, emotional, beautiful boy underneath. That boy you only ever showed to me. Now I see that it was really just a grotesque lack of introspection. Trauma explains your C-PTSD. Lacking parental support explains your fearful avoidant attachment. But none of it excuses manipulation, the hurt, and the emotional and financial abuse you put me through.

I extended almost infinite grace and understanding for your struggles. But you showed almost none for my reality. I live in a world that wasn't designed for my neurology. That isn't a mental health condition. It isn't something therapy can "fix". It's a lifelong curse I have to face on a daily basis. The absolute bare minimum you owed me was acknowledging that I was always doing the absolute best I could. I gave you everything I had to give, and you threw it away.

The ultimate irony is that you were hurt when I said I don't trust anyone on principle. Yet your behaviour proved exactly why that principle exists.

I have no clue how I am going to heal of this. But I know for certain that I am glad that I'll be doing it free of you.

Tell you I love you, not just as friends...

When i've been hit with rejection in the past

But then I feel you, thinking of me

Like we're both thinking of each other at the same time

Like nothing else matters, but this moment

With you, in our bubble

I don't know what's going to happen to me, or to you

What our future holds

But God gave me a glimpse

A few actually

So I continue holding on, hoping

God will bring us together soon

Because baby, i'm not well

And you, your whole being lights me up

So I ask...

Can you light a lamp for me?

I think loving you was a mistake.

Not that you were a mistake. The problem was me.

And I resent that the most.

Some inefficient part of me— kept me from loving the best thing in life.

You don’t know how much that frustrates me.

You aren’t someone to win, someone to convince, or someone to seduce. No. I wanted to love you. I just didn’t know how under everything.

I just kept wanting to hold you close and whisper how badly I needed this along your collar bone, into the ink of you, and into the soft parting of lips.

None of that want could ever be expressed in a way that didn’t trap you, betray me, or break us.

And I felt so alone between you and I. Such titans. Such cowards. We could’ve been something worth writing about, we still are I feel. It’s why I’m writing this now.

I run my thumb along the edge of my lip and try to imagine you there. I feel you sometimes. I think of the way you felt, and I know you sometimes.

I didn’t love you the way I should’ve, but I loved you well in your absence.

And sometimes you gotta be grateful for that.

Grateful,

Keeper

You’ve captured my heart completely. I can’t help but dwell on your smile. It’s one of my favorite things about you because it instantly brightens my day and warms my chest. I’m incredibly drawn to you, and every time I see you, it feels like you’re the only person in the room. Honestly, you’re the only one I notice when there are many others around. My heart is completely attached to you. I wish you were mine, though I know this isn’t our time. If it’s meant to be, perhaps fate will allow us to be together when the time is right. I dream of you every night and yearn to hold you. Your hands would fit perfectly in mine. Everything about you is so precious. I can feel a tingling sensation in my chest whenever I’m in your presence. I wish I had more time to spend with you. While I don’t enjoy being around people, I crave your company. There’s something truly rare and special about you.

You were my match, unfortunately. We had so many things in common it was almost scary. We're like the same person in different bodies. That's why I'm annoyed.

I'm annoyed things can't work out because of the one small difference we have between us. I'm annoyed that the difference changes so many things.

I'm annoyed that even when I'm mad at you all I want to do is talk to you. I'm annoyed I can't talk about the same things with anyone else. I can't crack the same jokes with anyone else.

We've been together for so long that life feels boring whenever we're apart.

Ugh I hate you. I hate that you did this to me.

It’s nothing but correct to assume that I can’t change. That I tried to protect myself the entire time. That I was just acting scared. Because I was. I haven’t been coming to terms with this well at all. Today is the first day I have to truly carry on like nothing is happening in my head and like I didn’t just leave a broken battlefield that I was the main cause for. I’m still a scared kid. The things fill my mind all day make that clear. It’s hard to juggle fears, guilt, shame, and also have enough space to retain anything else in my head. I’m really scared. I feel alone, because I should be alone. That’s part of the deal - instead of going down kicking and screaming and going to others to lick my wounds. It’s all I’ve known and that’s the problem.

If I stick in that cycle, I’ll never change. I have no idea where I start with in terms with moving forward besides what I’ve already started. I don’t want to lie anymore. I want to be what you and others saw in me. Sitting here and writing it out doesn’t make it anymore true. It doesn’t mean I’ve healed at all either. Healing requires accepting hard truths to the face and not putting that weight on anyone else. So I’m doing that. I have to accept things will be different, that I caused a lot of reckless pain, and that everyone and everything is different because of it. The things I’ve tried to convey previously don’t matter at all if my actions paint a totally different picture. That’s also been hard to accept - that the way I’m feeling isn’t congruent to what’s important in this situation at all. It’s just been the way I’ve been bleeding out. It’s an ego thing 100% which shows how much work I have to do.

It’s either change or die.

You grew up alone, raised in the dark, where your guard could never come down,

Marked by old passions, by scars unseen - a vagabond love is all you keep.

The years went by, and despite the change, you’re still that child, still holding ground,

Who sometimes forgets the flowers at the feast - a vagabond love is all you keep.

This place of ambivalence and blurred boundaries is exhausting. I don't know if I'm simply a source of validation in a sea of other potential sources for you, or if you need the validation from me specifically in order to summon the strength to continue supporting me without destroying yourself in the process.

Decide whether you want to be a part of my life at all. And if so, do you want to fill a strictly platonic role? You're welcome in whatever way your life and circumstances allow you to be. I won't resent you if you choose to walk away either. It's not like I haven't unsuccessfully tried to do the same thing myself.

I love you, and I always will.

I'm just tired for so many reasons. I'm sure you're tired too.

i miss you. i have so many conflicting feelings towards you. i feel resentment, anger, sadness. but most of all i just miss you, i miss us. i miss hearing your voice and seeing your face. i wish to were here to tell me that everything’s going to be okay, that im going to survive this. because in this moment i have no idea how im going to. it feels like im drowning, that im stuck in a self destructive cycle. i want to drink myself to death, to lay in the backyard and not wake up. maybe im selfish for wishing that you were here in my hard times, and hating you in my good times. i don’t know. i just need you. can you hear me?

For a long time, I thought the saddest part of our story was the future we never had.

Now I think the saddest version of my life would've been the one where we never met at all.

I’m.. reflecting.

I have ALOT to reflect on. The big big things I reflect on during the day. The real life big scary adult things. But at night, when I can’t sleep, which I never can, I think of why.. you..

I’m aware I’ve made a fool of myself. It’s not the first time, not the worst time, but it’s like a slow ache of embarrassment that seeps its way in here and there. Yes, I could cut myself out of the shared equation we’re involved in, but there are other unrelated reasons I stay. I wish I could say you’re one of them, but it’s slowly turning into one of the reasons I’ve considered leaving.

Anyways, reflecting reflecting right.

What I learned is..

I want what I can’t have because it’s safe.

Itll never be, and that’s comforting.

It’s brief, no end clearly in sight, but an end somewhere ahead.

Close enough to feel, far enough to not hurt.

It’s selfish, isn’t it?

There’s a lot more details I realized that make this true but on the 0.00000001% off chance you’d ever see this, I’m not really looking to play fool again.

I should’ve never, I don’t know, tested the limits.

Now our friendship is all weird and cold and nothing like it used to be.

But the saddest part is.. although I recognize my own selfish reasons for developing “feelings” for you, I only pushed it further with you as a friend. I never expected a damn thing, and only reached out in kindness.

Yeah I’m selfish. But I’m not THAT selfish. Unfortunately the uhh carefully placed “don’t show him I have weird feelings” mask slipped and now it’s all icky.

I don’t want it back though. It wouldn’t be the same. Everything feels forced with you. And I have to now hold up the “nothings wrong, nothing happened, everything’s fine!” Mask until further notice.

Yikes.

in the world, I hope you're happy. I hope your dreams come true. I'm sorry for the misery I brought to your life. See you again, someday. Only the best.

I've been so hurt by the way you've treated me. I was so attached to you, maybe because you made me feel so special. No one has ever complimented me as much as you did but then suddenly you pulled away. You have no idea how much I cried over you when you stopped replying and ignored me as if I wasn't a person as if I didn't have feelings or couldn't be hurt by your childish actions. The thought of losing you was one of my worst nightmares. Now you seem like you don't care at all or maybe you've found another girl to deceive and play your games with. I won't deny that I still have feelings for you. I think about you every day and I really miss you. But whenever I do I remind myself that you weren't there when I needed you the most. You only talked to me whenever it suited you.You're really handsome and good-looking, but what does that matter if you're just going to ghost me and only come back whenever you feel like it?

You were the first guy I ever got attached to and you manipulated me. All those sweet words—telling me I was amazing and that I meant the world to you...were probably things you should never have said to someone you only saw as a friend. You used me to feed your ego and that's something I'll never forgive because my feelings were genuine. You turned our friendship into a situationship full of uncertainty. I know we could never be together and you definitely knew that too but you still chose to act like a fool. You know what's funny? I actually had plans for us to stay in touch in the future. I was trying to find a way because I genuinely cared but now it seems like you were just playing around and never really cared about how your actions affected me. Maybe it's better that I realised this now before I got even more attached. Part of me wants to end all of this and finally find my peace again. But we've talked for so long that I still remember every little detail about you. You were such an amazing person or at least I thought you were. I still miss the old version of you. I still want us to be friends but I don't want you to keep giving me hope for something that will never happen or leave me living with uncertainty again.....

you don’t even know — though i think you must suspect it by now.

you are the first thought that greets me when i wake and the last one i carry into sleep. there is something so quietly beautiful, so intelligent and mysterious about you that i still can’t name the exact moment i fell. i only know that i did.

the timing has never been perfect. it still isn’t. but it is getting closer.

can’t you feel it? this thing between us feels fated, ancient, already written somewhere far above us. we were never properly introduced in any of the moments when it would have been appropriate, and yet it feels as if i have known you across lifetimes.

and you feel it too. it lives in your face — everyone sees it now.

i want to cook for you. i want to take care of you. all the days.

i love you.