A Mess

I miss you, my heart aches at the most inconvenient times, when there is a lull in the world around me and silence comes crashing around me. I'm not allowed to miss you, which makes me miss you more. I'm not allowed to say your name and reminiscence of all the amazing times we had, when you were my best friend.

I don't truly miss you. I miss who I was with you and maybe that is not the same thing. I have lost my place in the world, not by missing you but by losing you. Who knew two people could be so intertwined after 7 years and then disappear. Every sound, feeling, and landscape brings me back to you. Now we are strangers, separated; someone lost everything and someone found themselves better. Some days I wonder which of us this applies to and other days I know.

I want to hate you. To be free of you and your memories, to move on. But I stop, my life was so completely tied to you I cannot lose you, lest I lose myself. You are not the same as I remember, you drink more, you like things I never knew about. I stifled you, I ruined you, I left you, long before you left me.

I do not love you. Which is not the same of hating you but it is the best I can manage. I did love you, completely, utterly, and all encompassing at least for a moment, a moment that lasted years. I often return to the months leading up to you leaving, moments I should have stopped and said "Don't go, let's runaway together, let's try to fix this, I love you, I'm sorry" But I didn't because I didn't feel it and didn't want to. I still don't.