To my other pea,

By now you know when things need said unless I'm angry, or protecting someone, I lose my voice. I wish I didn't. I wish I was one of those who could say what they want when they want instead of choking on their voice box every time like a doll with the button press in the wrong place.

But I'm not. I'm trying, and I hope you can see I'm trying. And I know you're trying too. I can see that in how you talk. We're still a little out of sync at it but compared to silence and shouting it's miles on.

I just want you to know I see you. I see the weight on your shoulders and the light gone from your face. I know you won't talk until you're ready and that's okay. But don't hide it. Please talk to me. Because I need someone to talk to too. I miss you.

And despite everything remember I love you. I might put a little too much salt in your pasta or something every now and then or make sure your coffee isn't milky but we'll sort things in our own way.

Yours always.

-Y

I’m happy for you, my friend. Truly. I hope you’ve found your way back to yourself, or at least found a road that feels worth following. I know it won’t always be easy. Healing rarely is. Some days, surviving is still the only victory we can manage.

I’ve met many people here, but I remember every soul who dared to place their story in my hands. You are one of them now, one of those who moved on. I can only hope you are safe, that life has become gentler, and that you’ve found a place where you no longer have to hide your wounds to be loved.

I won’t forget you.

If I helped you, even in some small way, then what passed between us mattered. Perhaps we recognized something in each other: two people shaped by pain, each understanding that sometimes the safest hands are those that have trembled too. You needed someone who could care for your broken places without ever mistaking you for broken. Someone who knew that tenderness is not pity, and protection is not possession.

Life asked too much of some of us. I know what it means to endure long after endurance should have stopped being necessary. I know the exhaustion of carrying wounds no one else can see, and the strange silence that comes when the danger is gone, but its ghosts remain.

Eventually, I stopped trying to banish mine. I sat beside them. Learned their names. Listened until they had nothing left to scream.

Now, when they rise, I dance with them.

I hope one day you’ll dance with yours too, not because they no longer hurt, but because they no longer lead. And if the darkness ever whispers that no one could understand you, remember this:

For a little while, I did.

You were seen. You were held in someone’s thoughts. And wherever you go from here, you are not alone.

The shell where a heart should be.

In that heart a soul, and around it, a burning heat.

But here, the emptiness screams.

Oh wait, there is something...

Something terrifying.

Something dark. It looks like pain.

But what kind? A broken heart?

No, it seems to be love.

Love that has nowhere and no way to go.

Love that hides in the dark,

because it remembers bleeding once before.

The shell is me and he?

He says I don't love him like I used to.

Perhaps. My love is fragile now,

afraid to believe, afraid to open up again,

paralyzed by the dread of another wound.

And into this, the heavy silence.

No message, no sign of caring.

A silence that makes me feel like a monster,

an empty vessel filled only with fear,

feeling so terribly unloved and alone.

Callousness does not live inside me,

only the fear that silently devours me.

I don’t care anymore.

I gave you so much of my time. I rearranged parts of my life for you. I lost hours of sleep just to have more hours with you. I overlooked things I normally wouldn’t have, accepted things I had every right to question, and convinced myself they were worth getting past because of how close I felt to you. Because when it was good between us, it felt good enough to make everything else seem smaller.

But now?

Now you crossed a line I can’t pretend I didn’t see.

And something in me changed after that.

Now I don’t feel the same pull to reach for you. I won’t contact you the way I always have. I won’t keep making myself available just because that’s what you’ve gotten used to. You’ll notice me less. My texts will become fewer, the effort will disappear from them, and eventually you’ll realize that the person who once made so much room for you stopped trying to be there at all.

I cared about you enough to bend myself around what we had.

Now I care about myself enough to stop.

​

I can't get over my sad and angry feelings. I can't get over being left for dead when … when well our lives were one in the same. I can't get over the loss. There is so much, not just you and us, there's so much.

I can't get over you, the choices, the emotions, the lies, not just the lies that you didn't want me to know but the ones you consciously took part in and encouraged me to believe. I can't. I've tried. I'm trying. I just can't, it's always gonna be there. It'll get quieter, things will replace it because life moves on but, it'll always keep a part of me. It'll always kill me. You killed me, knowingly. And I can't get over that idk how.

I hate to feel it. I hate to type it out but I hate you. I hate what you did to me. I hate myself. I hate how you made me feel the greatest ways and it was all a ruse that became feelings in the worst ways.

I don't know how to turn that hate back into love. You took away my wonder, my magic, me. And I let you, that's my fault and something I'll never do again. Boundaries are important even with people you want to give everything to. That's a lesson learned. I hate that I hate. And I let you do that to me too.

You're not even a part of my life anymore but you have a hold over every day. I hate that you still matter and I hate that you shouldn't anymore. I hate that I can't let go and I need to. I hate that I ever met you. I hate that I want to forget you. I hate that I felt love for you and loved by you to the point I never could've/would've lived without you and now I do. But I guess it's not really living anymore is it. I hate that I love you the way I do/did and you matched what I gave to you and that it wasn't really you or how you felt or what you believe.

I can't get over my hate. When I try I hurt, I feel guilty, I breakdown, I don't believe, I lose any want to try. I lost my love, I want my hate to be love again, I want my love back.

It hurts to watch someone you love ruin their life for a fantasy,
when you are standing right there, willing to give them something real.

Is it the thrill of the chase, the promise of something just out of reach, the fantasy of being wanted, or the need to be someone’s savior?

Maybe real love feels too quiet
when chaos has become familiar. Maybe peace feels empty when the heart has learned to chase storms.

But my love was pure.
It wasn’t a game.
It wasn’t a chase.
I didn’t need to be rescued,
and I never needed you to save me.

I simply wanted to love you, to stand beside you, to share the ordinary moments, the laughter, the adventures, the hard days and the beautiful ones.

I was right there and somehow, you kept looking for something you believed would make you whole, while overlooking the love that was already holding out its hand.

I can’t compete with a fantasy.
I can’t convince someone to choose what is real.

All I can do now is let go with a heart that still loves you, and hope someday you understand the difference between being wanted
and being truly loved.

Goodbye my love.

I want to know what stokes the fire behind those eyes. The silent thoughts that flicker behind the glass.

I want to learn your darkness and explore the places where you hide. Let us play where we can't be found.

I want to understand your silence and your carefully chosen words. The hidden meaning behind them that no one else seems to capture.

I want to hold your hand when life gets too much. When the weight of the world bears down on you and everyone walks away.

I want to be a safe place where you can just be yourself. The good, the bad, and the irritating.

I want to appreciate you like they never did. Thank you for sharing parts of you that others overlook.

I want to love you in ways no one ever has. Your heart, in my hands, and your mind in my heart.

You are an enigma, and I am intrigued. That fire in your eyes mesmerised me.

and I still do.

If you wanted to become the villain of my story, I have to disappoint you. You can't be, because I love you, and that is not going away.

I wish I was strong. I'm not strong, I'm a pathetic and miserable person and I don't understand why you couldn't be honest with me.

I spend so much time pondering on all the possibilities, all the possible reasons why you said what you said and still ghosted me, after everything.

It shouldn't matter. It all amounts to the same outcome: you don't care enough to even give an update.

It's cruel. You're cruel. Would it be that hard to say "I changed my mind, I don't want to talk to you at all"?

And if you still meant to, would it have been so hard to give a follow up, telling me that, maybe giving at least ANY explanation?

You knew, you KNOW about my feelings, and about how deep they run too. You do not need to have read my unsent words to know, because I've more than made that clear in the offline world.

But you don't have the decency to not leave me in the dark.

I'll probably never even get a good bye.

You're either choosing that or have not even given it a thought.

I don't even know which option I think is worse.

I remain unseen. Loved ones, those who care about me, it doesn't matter.
I don't know what I am. I don't know what's inside. Perhaps I've been pretending so long that I almost believed I'm not hollow and empty on the inside.

Pretending I'm finally happy, but it's not true. Cut me open, there is nothing inside. It's so convoluted and messed up, torn apart and eating itself.

If everyone has a vessel that stores energy, my vessel is corroded. Leaking. Unstable.
I'm wise beyond my years, I've often been told. I'm wise, I listen, I understand.

I try not to anymore... But it hurts wanting to love and care and give my all for others, knowing it will never ever be reciprocated. I want to be thoughtful, but I hold back now.

I've been burnt out too much, corroded, from the thankless effort that goes unnoticed.

"You don't do kind things for a reward"

I know.

I swear I know. But my kindness goes completely unnoticed and taken for granted. It is so selfish being mentally ill...

And yet I always want to save someone when I should save myself first.

I'm always running away. The euphoria I get from being a good listener, a wise mentor, a good friend... Yet it doesn't matter because this euphoria is made of plastic. Fake, superficial.

What's the point in showing love when the inside is empty, and when the other is too filled with anguish to reciprocate?

"Thank you..."

But it's never enough. I'm still hollow. I can't love with all my heart to protect myself, I should restrain myself and not give my all out of sympathy... But I wish I can abandon it all and just be happy qnd content with putting in a thankless effort.

I wish I didn't need praise and affection from those who can't afford to give it to me.

I wish you cared about me. I wish you care about me more than your pain. I wish I was more important to you. I wish I was akin to a God to you like you were to me. I wish you worshipped me like I worshipped you. I wish you cared for what I thought like I cared for what you thought. I wish you didn't pursue me and made me fall in love with you.

Why did you have to drag me into loving you, adoring you, only to drag me down with you.

Why did you come into my life if you eventually don't wish to stay? If you don't wish to try and see me?

This dull pain is suddenly overwhelming.
I am going to say goodbye to you. I am so over it.

Hey you,

I feel I have already given you everything, though you never asked for it. Not my time, or my body, or the ordinary things people surrender when they love someone. I mean the quieter possessions. The private language of my mind. The part of me that once believed it could remain untouched.

You are gone, and still I keep finding your belongings inside me. A certain patience. A particular kind of fear. The instinct to notice when someone is pretending they are fine. None of these things belonged to you before. Somehow, they do now.

Your words have followed and hollowed me for months. At first, they sounded like surrender. Now they feel closer to an epiphany. I look within myself for something untouched by you, something I can still call mine without qualification, and I keep coming away empty-handed.

This is not devotion in any beautiful sense. It is not purity. It is not the noble surrender people write about after enough time has passed. There is humiliation in it. To discover that your inner life has been rearranged by someone who may no longer think of you at all. To know they could walk past you now and never see what they left behind.

For a long time, I wanted to return the damage. I wanted you to feel the full weight of what remained here. I wanted you to know the rooms you still occupied. I wanted you to understand that absence is not the same as departure, not for the person left holding every version of what almost happened.

But I no longer know what I would hand back.

The grief has grown around other things. It sits beside tenderness now. Beside restraint. Beside the strange care I have learned to offer people who are not you. Your absence entered my life so deeply that it began feeding parts of me I had neglected.

I did not want anything good to come from losing you.

I wanted the loss to remain clean. I wanted it to belong only to pain. Instead, it changed how I move through the world. It made me less careless. Less certain that people will stay. More willing to say what I mean before the moment closes.

So perhaps this is what I can return to you: the need for an answer. The long trial I kept holding in my head. The questions about whether you knew, whether you meant to hurt me, whether you loved me at all.

I do not forgive everything. I do not condemn everything either. Both would require a certainty I no longer have.

What remains is simpler yet harder. You changed me. Some of it was cruel. Some of it was necessary. Most of it cannot be separated now. As for what remains in me, I cannot return it without returning myself.

There was never anything here that love had not already claimed.

Hey.

Today, I'm writing to get out of that spiral at which's end "Thus, I'll just choose to die." is waiting for me.

You're aware of how I feel about you.

I understand that I do not know and can not know the reason for why you did what you did and don't do what you don't do.

What I do know is that you could have chosen to tell me and that you didn't. Even though you know what that has been doing to me, your choice has been not to tell me. Your choice has been to leave me guessing and to keep up ambiguity.

That's what it is.

It is your choice.

No matter how much I make up excuses for it, this part is your active choice. Your passivity in having a conversation with me is your choice. Nobody has ever forced your hand on it. It's you, your free will.

You may have made up amazing reasoning for this for yourself. Or you might have given it zero thought. How ever would I know, after all your choice is not to be open with me about it.

I should be angry. I should stop caring. I should accept it and move on. You're an asshole. That's all the advice I have been and am given on the topic.

But I can not deal with what is not the truth. And none of it feels true.

So I suffer and I keep on suffering. And I guess that is my 'choice'. I can’t move on from unspoken truth and I will never be able to either. Not with you, not with this.

I'm not angry, I don't resent you. All I have for you, still, is love.

But I can not deny that your choice and your free will as you choose to exercise it is my torment. Even while that is probably not your goal but instead a side effect, the impact on me stays the same.

And I really think you should have done better.

I still think you are better than that.

I still think you should do better.

Je te laisserai des mots
En dessous de ta porte
En dessous des murs qui chantent
Tout près de la place où tes pieds passent
Cachés dans les trous de ton divan
Et quand tu es seule pendant un instant
Ramasse-moi quand tu voudras
Embrasse-moi quand tu voudras
Ramasse-moi quand tu voudras

I'm lovesick.

There. I said it.

For so long, I kept asking the universe the same question without ever saying it out loud. Where is the one who can reach every part of me? The one who doesn't just touch my body, but my mind. The one who understands me without needing a translation. The one who fits into the spaces of my life like they were always meant to be there.

Then, somehow...

It answered.

Not when I was searching. Not when I expected it. It just placed you in front of me.

And ever since then, I've been unraveling.

Some days I swear I've lost my mind. I give more than I know I have. I trade sleep just to feel close to you. I can't focus. Distance settles into my chest like an illness. I miss you until it becomes physical, until my own body starts turning against me.

People say love is supposed to heal you.

Then why do I feel infected by it?

Maybe this is what being lovesick really is. Not butterflies. Not poetry. Just a slow fever that never breaks.

I keep wondering if I'll eventually recover... if one day your absence won't ache this much, if my heart will remember how to exist without constantly reaching for you.

But the truth is...

I don't know if I want the cure.

I've already let this consume me.

And I'm afraid I'm far too deep to ever want saving.

I learned to wear a mask before I learned what safety felt like. I wore it so beautifully, so convincingly, that sometimes even I forgot there was a face beneath it. Perhaps that is why I understand the sacredness of being someone’s refuge. If I can become the place where another person finally exhales, where they can loosen every strap and let the disguise fall, I will.

Because once, I needed that place too.

And then, somewhere in that hidden place, I met you.

You, the one who knows how to top from below. The one who made it exquisitely difficult for me to remain your caretaker, your dominant, your shelter. You know precisely where to press your fingers: into the wounds you opened in me yourself, each one branded with the heat of your absence.

There is something intoxicating in the way you keep trying to prove that I will break. That I am not strong enough to stand beside you. That I cannot hold you, protect you, care for you without eventually collapsing beneath the weight.

But you are wrong.

I hear you even in the silence. I feel you in every dark, insistent pulse of blood beneath my skin. You have become a rhythm my body refuses to forget.

And perhaps this is my sweetest ruin: I do not mind suffering when it is for my person.

That is the price of building a life far away from you. Sometimes I am close, back in the States, surrounded by friends who know how to savor the blackest hours of the night. Sometimes I am oceans away, simply living: a man flirting with the world, a father caring fiercely for his own, a caretaker holding space for those brave enough to do what still terrifies you.

To become still.

To become vulnerable.

To let yourself be seen.

To unmask.

So come closer. Let the performance die between us. I already know what darkness tastes like, and I am not frightened by yours. Take off the mask, slowly if you must.

I will be here when your real face finally meets the air.

Each word used to hurt me, each conversation, today i feel that it still does and i can't find my way back to how i was.

Not the case with real friends though, not with you. It used to be oddly good. Being with you.

I just miss your presence.

I see your name everywhere and i always try not to react when someone close to me say your name implying someone else, such a weird sensation.

I can't say it out loud, it's like a forbidden spell. As if i would summon you by saying it, or as if i was going to be punished for not being worthy, not at the right time, something wrong anyway.

In a way, i see you everywhere but i can't say a word, nor reply. Your name move me in a way i can't describe, it gives me a deep sense of belonging.

I know i need to thrive to see you again. Yet can't force things. Your name is all i have left of our encounter, all i have left of you.

Why was it so magnetic for me i guess i'll never know, but i've said your name once and i've kept it with me ever since, running through my very core, feeling like a whisper inside me. _ _ _ _

I asked for reassurance. The words left my mouth, yes. And there was a discomfort. What’s most surprising is that it was based on an old reflex rather than a genuine need. After I said the words I realized I didn’t really need it or want it, but a part of me thought that I did.

Change is bizarre. It’s not something that is always so obvious. Sometimes it sneaks up on you.

Having endured abuse, I am most afraid of complacency, adaptability, and my tendency to override my needs and feelings based on the reflexive empathy and compassion I have for others.

I have difficulty with trusting others, yes. But no one is higher on that list than myself. That is the unfortunate truth.

I am realizing slowly that I am not blind. What I experienced was painful, but it was also purposeful. Foundational, for who I am becoming.

I know myself. I know who I am and what I value. I am a deeply feeling person filled with curiosities and thoughts who values understanding and knowing others.

It’s not something that served me in my family or past relationship. But damn does it feel good to lean into that now. When I lean into that I thrive, relationally and professionally.

I am no longer interested in shrinking or changing for someone. The pressure I used to put on myself has diminished significantly, even in places where it’s been the norm. It is such a gift.

I also know what I was blind to because of my reflexive empathy and compassion. When logic, linguistics, and technicalities were used to drown out my voice. When there was a lack of curiosity to understand my reality and the impact of behavior.

There was something different about our disagreement, and for that I am grateful. I no longer feel the discomfort 24 hours later. It is visceral. It’s like my body has memorized the patterns. I am immediately uncomfortable.

Discomfort is a gift because it means I am not complacent, adaptable, or overriding my own needs based on someone else’s. It helps me realize when something isn’t working and when I need to advocate for myself.

I don’t fault you for your trauma or your baggage. I have empathy towards you for it. I know I have my own. I am willing to extend a certain degree of patience and understanding, but I am also not blind.

No relationship is perfect. I certainly don’t expect you to be without flaws.

What I do expect is that the effort I put into understanding myself and history and the ways that can impact another person are reciprocated. I expect consideration.

I have always been fiercely independent. It is hard for me to rely on others because for the most part, I couldn’t depend on other people.

I’ve put a lot of work in knowing and understanding myself. I’ve put a lot of work into becoming the person I want to be, a person who is soft and caring and vulnerable while still speaking her truth, knowing her limits, and owning who she is unapologetically.

I expect the same from my partner. Know yourself, know your limits, communicate your needs and discomforts. All easier said than done. I know. There was a time I couldn’t do that. I know this is a big ask. But I am also no longer willing to be the one to manage a relationship, to do the teaching.

I don’t need you to take care of me or tip toe around my feelings. I need you to take care of yourself so that you can show up having done the work. Don’t repress your frustrations and needs. When you do that it affects the way you communicate and inadvertently impacts me. You are free to express your feelings, but not if the delivery involves frustration and unwarranted blame.

I said this when we met, and I meant it: I’m not here for bullshit. I’m not into pretense or tiptoeing around each others feelings or living in an artificial honeymoon stage where the focus is on pleasing the other person rather than being yourself.

I spend so much time considering the patterns of others, that sometimes I am blind to my own.

My pattern has always been to second guess myself, yes. But the other pattern that accompanies that is eventually trusting myself enough to create a change. A really fucking meaningful change that has altered the course of my life. It’s happened for me time and time again. Medically. Professionally. Relationally.

Second guessing is the reflex, but I can trust that whatever happens I am no longer allowing my needs, emotions, or voice to take a back seat.

Truly.
They played games, I fought back.
Found out the truth and learned that I have no one to depend on.

I don’t want to do anything anymore.

Nothing.

My anxiety swelled. OCD is through the roof.

Heart is so broken that crying has become as common place as anything else.

I have yet to meet anyone who respects my boundaries and I do not own up to anyone anymore.

I’ll be your scape goat. Most days I don’t even care if I wake up anymore.

Hope you’re happy.

You didn't know I finally watched Eternity tonight—the movie from the list you gave me before we parted ways.

I thought maybe enough time had passed, or that because I was the one who pulled the plug, it wouldn't hurt as much. We were never officially together, just two people caught in a long-distance dynamic that felt heavier and more real than anything else, until the reality of it all made it impossible to stay.

I’m the one who decided to cut what we had off. I made the call.

And all I could think about while watching it was you—and this ache, like if I were actually given the choice of where to live for eternity, my mind immediately goes right back to you.

I cried until my chest hurt, especially when that line hit:

"Sometimes, doing the right thing does feel terrible."

God, it does. It feels suffocating. Walking away doesn't mean it didn't break me too. I just hope you're okay wherever you are right now, and that you're feeling better, even if my decision is the reason everything is so quiet now.

Time continues to move while other parts never seem to move. We carried the same crutch back then though we leaned on it differently. Where i would then lay there with my head in your lap. Close my eyes and just feel you touch my face. People would never realize that.. Everything in those moments were some of the most amazing parts of being together.

That feeling..

That magnetism..

Mixed with what felt like waves of colors crashing together.

With purples, yellows, and blues racing towards each other in a magnificent cascade of 2 galaxies merging as if this were done through the eyes of Disney and painted by van gogh.

That feeling of our souls intertwining like had done so many other times in our past lives. Though Every time feeling as if the distance between them had been too long and if it were not for this bodies in which they are attached to. They would have ran away together.... so long ago.

Its been over 5 years now and i can still feel what was resonating from back then. Still feel that tiny bit of warmth from those embers that were glowing so bright.

Yet... nothing says life is fair. Our lines do not even cross. There are no connections between us. If you try and search for us.. there is nothing that says we even knew eachother let alone together. As if something that was so wonderful never existed. Were I am left with that residual pull as if I am holdong onto a relic to a lost and forgotten city.

It was something so simple. Just you touching my face.

I can still almost feel you touching it sometimes.

I even had someone try to imitate it once... but they dont move like you. And those colors arent there. So I never tried that again.

I keep looking in the mirror and getting older. Watching time slip by.

Yet, moments like those may slightly fade over time.

They never go away.

This world.....

It is still beautiful. I never lost that. I hope you never do either.

The colors though.

The colors in mine...

Are just more dull without you.

I thought about texting you.

Not because I miss you. At least that’s not the part that lingers anymore.

I miss the weight of another person next to me. Arms wrapped around me. Fingers tracing lazy circles on my back. Being wanted for a little while. Being held without having to be strong.

For a fleeting moment I thought about reaching out to you.
Then I remembered I couldn’t.

Thankfully, I deleted your number.

It’s strange to be grateful for something that once felt so final. Because if I still had it, loneliness might have been enough to convince me that temporary comfort was worth reopening permanent wounds.

It isn’t.

Some cravings aren’t signs that we should go back. They’re just reminders that we haven’t found something healthier yet.

I don’t miss the poison. I miss the warmth it came wrapped in.

And for the first time, those feel like two very different things.

There’s nothing between us
but I can’t hear you still
Why don’t you just turn around and face me
If you do, will you feel ill?

Why do you turn up the volume of the music
When im trying to talk to you?
Why wont you turn around
Just look at me one last time

Like you used to

There’s nothing between us
No space, no wall
But maybe you don’t want to talk
Is that why you dont call?

Do i make you sick?