Here Are The Things I’m Not Brave Enough To Say

1. you decided the view wasn’t for you, but you’d only just tied your shoelaces and stretched your calves; you had mountains of my heart left to climb.

2. it’s too bad you missed the sunset. i had never glowed for anyone like that.

3. there were constellations pulsing in my midnight sky i never wanted anyone but you to hold my hand under. now you’re just someone else who left me hurt and undiscovered.

4. i wanted to be cartographer of your soul and body. blame them both if i cannot see you yet; i am still transfixed. i swear i am trying not to be.

5. i have never tried this hard at letting go.

6. i have a high threshold for pain, i don’t understand why it hurts like this.

7. i know i don’t look anything like the girls you follow, but i wanted to be lovely for you. only for you. i would’ve blistered in the golden hour light, rolled around the meadow, drowned in honey, painted my lips in every shade of pink.

8. i learned to love your snoring because i chose you, the same way i learned to sleep through your countless alarms each morning. i miss listening to your raucous breathing, when my eyes weren’t yet heavy and you were already inside your dreams. you’ve no idea of the many ways you lulled me to sleep.

9. in the middle of the night, asleep, you’d reach for me, kiss my skin, and squeeze my body, often. i’d wake up to whispers in your native tongue coming from your lips. i could’ve sworn it all meant something.

10. for you, i would have learned a third language. i would have used it with your mother. i would have held that piece of you in me. i would have spoken it to whisper for your hands to touch me in the dark and at the first glimpse of the sun.

11. i fucked him only because i thought he could lick your name from my lips. when it was over, in the dark, i cried silently. i whispered your name to myself and clung to it like a safety blanket.

12. on nights i wake up from nightmares, i fight every bone inside my body not to go digging in that bag buried in my closet to wrap myself in your cardigan. i don’t give in, but three nights ago i said your name over and over until i could breathe.

13. you made me feel less alone.

14. i still want to sleep in your bed. just sleep. but it is your bed. i don’t know what that means.

15. i wasn’t looking for you. i swear i didn’t mean to love you. you were good in ways i had never known.

16. what you did to me with her, it’s not who i thought you were. some days, i hate you so much for it. you don’t do that to someone you have respect and care for. some days i get so angry in the healing of it all, that i wonder if i had you all wrong.

17. you became one of my best friends, but my heart was never safe with you.

18. i want to say one day you’ll wake up next to someone and not feel love, not feel lust, not feel anything, and miss waking up next to me. i want to say i’m sure of it, but i’d be wrong. you let me go because you knew i didn’t just want to be appreciated, but loved.

19. when i see you, know it’s because i no longer feel anything at all.

20. part of me knows this will be a lie.