In The New Year, I Promise To Let You Go

I’ve spent so much time fumbling through old pictures, rereading old texts, replaying conversations in my mind of when you used to love me. I never thought such good memories that made me smile would be the very same ones that left me in tears, clenching your old sweatshirt I didn’t give back.

I never thought the same person I loved with all my heart, who I saw a very clear future with, would be the same one to break me in million pieces and change all my plans.

I replayed the goodbye trying to realize where I went wrong or when everything might have changed. But I couldn’t come up with anything other than an ending that blind-sided me.

I realized you were long gone before that final goodbye, I just never saw it.

And in that time I’ve been trying to get by. I’ve been trying to be okay.

We agreed to be friends and still talk sometimes but everyone knows what that means.

Awkward politeness of answered texts and small talk that gets us nowhere. Liking each other’s pics and sending snaps, like we used to, only everything is different. Drunk conversations, if we happen to be in the same place and maybe a hookup we both regret, that hurts only me.

You let go but I was still holding on for dear life. I was holding on to the day maybe you’d realize you loved me again because the thing was I never stopped.

I can’t be your friend. Because it hurts to know where we were and that we may never be there again.

I can’t just talk like we didn’t have a past, I still wish was the present. I need to get over you and I have no idea how. Because how do you look at someone you love and give up on a feeling that is so strong?

I thought if I kept trying maybe you’d remember. Maybe you’d miss me too.

I still haven’t gotten used to sleeping alone. I still look at my phone first thing in the morning hoping maybe for a text. I still haven’t gotten used to a life without you but here we are, apart and it kills me.

So in the new year, I need to let you go. And I need you not to miss me when I do.

In the New Year, I’ll delete every picture like you didn’t exist in my world, even though you were my world.

In the New Year, I’ll throw away everything that was yours.

In the New Year, I won’t text or call you.

In the New Year, I won’t answer even if it kills me. The truth is I can’t say hello and deal with another goodbye.

In the New Year, I’ll unfollow and unfriend you even if I cry doing so

In the New Year if I see you out, I’ll pretend I don’t know you. The truth is I don’t want to know you if it means you without me.

In the New Year, I will fall out of love with you.

Because in the New Year, I will heal and love again.

And when I do, I promise you in the New Year, it’ll be your turn to miss me.