it was what your friend—who really isn’t your friend—said to you earlier: that snide comment about your outfit, the way their eyebrows raised as they looked you over. it was enough to put you back here.

they’re not my friend, you think as you study yourself, still wearing that outfit they’d shit on, the one you were so proud of earlier when you picked it out.

“i think it’s cute,” you’d said to them, trying to defend yourself. “i feel good in it.”

and when they’d only hummed in response, still wearing that oh, you poor soul expression, you felt yourself falling down, down, down again.

“i feel good in this,” you say to yourself now. “fuck them.”

how many times have you let them bring you down? how many years have you tolerated it? the thought of putting up with it any longer sickens you.

and so you decide, right then, looking at yourself in your outfit you like, to not put up with it a second longer.

the tower

sometimes life moves

in unexpected directions.

sometimes it’s good,

and sometimes it can seem

as if just about

everything is ruined.

when it does,

you will stand there

watching helplessly

as it crumbles.

and when it all

comes crashing down

around you,

what can you do

other than wait

for the dust to settle,

and see what is needed

for you to rebuild?

the day we ended,

i felt my life irreversibly

shift.

what once made

so much sense

no longer did.

my view

of the world

was flipped upside-down.

for what am i

without you?

who am i

if not yours?

what is love

if not your name?

here’s the thing:

it was going to hurt no matter what. it was going to hurt even though i knew it was the right thing to do. it was going to hurt even though the idea of staying cut me far deeper. i could not have avoided that pain.

but i still tried. i tried hard to tie us off with a neat little bow, to patch us up with flowered band-aids as if i hadn’t just severed the relationship that had been my right hand for the last four years. i wanted so badly for it to be easy. because i loved you—and i love you still, in the way you love the ones you wouldn’t have left if you’d only been different people—and you deserved to be left as gently as possible. i wanted you to understand that it wasn’t your fault. i have spent my life loving and leaving. perhaps that is my curse. my way.

the anger came eventually, though, as it always does, and i could not pretend to hate you for trying to forget me. i could not even try to blame you for it. but this is what i will leave you with:

we were real. we were real and in love and it was beautiful. and now it’s done. and i don’t feel bad about it. i had to go, okay? i had to. i doubt i’ll ever know if you forgive me for it, but i imagine one day i will hear of your happiness and that will be enough, for me.