The hardest part about leaving without knowing where you stand is that all the days when you're away, no matter what you're doing, you'll trace your thoughts back to the place where you left your heart behind in someone else's hands.

You start counting the days. You take comfort from the fact that you're still living under the same sky, even though his bright, sunny days are your long, insufferable nights. It's not easy, making things work. Sometimes, they just would not go according to plan. You mark the days on your trusty old calendar. He counts the remaining weeks in his tired, trembling hands.

Somehow, you still don't know where you stand.

And you go through the motions because what other choice do you have? You see clouds and endless rolling hills where you used to watch his footsteps linger. There is little assurance that one day, the other end of the couch that is not your side will be filled with that presence again, that one that sinks the cushion but lightens your insides. Love, you think, takes so much effort, but not once do you ever ask if it is worth it.

Albeit slowly, time passes. He changes. You do, too. You realize that there was no use wasting all that time trying to count the days - they come in their own time. You take one step after another. He reaches out to you, the way you imagine a newly bloomed flower stretching up to meet the sun. 

The truth surfaces when you see him smile.

You are his sun.

I want to travel alone. I want to go to distant places, lands unknown, with unfamiliar people and unfamiliar sights. I want to meet their locals and try authentic dishes. I want to walk through the populated streets of China, shoulder to shoulder with its residents. I want to stand under a cherryblossom tree in Japan, get showered with its petals. I want to ride a bike on a deserted street in South Korea. Eat desserts in Paris. I want to experience everything the world has to offer. I want to live, to find myself, to fall in love with the person I will be. I want to be happy. I want to be truly, genuinely, startlingly happy.

It's thirty nine after midnight, and tomorrow looms overhead, an uninvited forecast of yet another nightmare.

You tell yourself it's fine, you're almost there, you're almost over it. But eight weeks from now, you'll look back and see that you've barely taken a step forward, for your back foot is stuck in mud.

You wish to be able to claw at your brain. To unfold each corner of that great, gray mass, and scrub away every memory you've been trying to get rid of. You wish to shed the skin you're in, to grow a new one, cause maybe then you'll be new, too. Maybe then you'll be you again.

The thing is, you can't. You have to force your eyes shut at night and drag yourself off your bed in the morning and live with the fate you've drawn. You live, knowing that no matter how fast you run or how swiftly you hide, you can't fool your monsters. They are of your own making.

So you live. So you watch sunrise after sunrise, day after day, wishing you were anything else, anywhere else. So you live, with people telling you it's normal to feel, you're human, after all.

You live.

And you spend every minute of it wishing otherwise.

The enormity of it all hit me like a truck: your intermittent goodbye, always hovering, always threatening, but always just almost leaving your patched, pale lips, the hazy blur of the last five years, the jagged glass edges of those memories swimming in my brain. Your quick smile, your lack of patience, the grainy sound of your voice that I poorly remember now...you. Just you, trying to make me as happy as happiness allows, giving in to my whims and demands. Where do I even start? How? Why do I need to?

It has only been five short years, but it feels like you've been in my life forever. Now that I feel your hand slowly slipping from my hold, I wish I knew what to do. I've lost you a million times- to an idea of a better me, to someone else, to bridges I've been burning to keep the past from catching up. But you've always been here, haven't you? You've been that perfect song on the bus when I thought I was going through life alone. You were the perfect stranger's warm smile when I was hiding behind clouds of my own making, so why can't I feel you now? Where are you?

You're a speck of dust I caught in my eyes on the windiest day in history. You'll never know, but you made me cry. More than that, you made me laugh. You made me happy. Why do I feel like now is the time to let you go, when you've always been my hero? You were here once, always. Why did you let me be comfortable with the thought that you'd never leave if you never really planned to stay?

I still love you, but not with the burning kind I felt in the beginning. You still make my heart jump, but I can breathe now. You still say things that make me blush, you still do things that make me want to melt right then and there, but I can get over it now.

I've learned to contain my feelings for you because I realized that if you really care, I wouldn't have to wonder. I shouldn't have had to make excuses to talk to you and to see you all the time. I loved you enough. It was obvious enough, but you just didn't get it.

So now, however sad it makes me, I'm happy to miss the goosebumps....the moments that reshape my eyes into two beating hearts. 

I still love you, but it doesn't hurt anymore.

In bed, nursing what seems to be the world's worst headache, she thinks:

 

It's time to move on from this year long unrequited love.

With a pang in her chest, she recalls how happy he used to make her. The sound of his laughter blending in with hers echoes through her mind, sending a rapture of salty tears down the valleys of her cheeks.

They used to drive around with the windows down, hunting the local shops for things she may like. His left hand, so sire and steady, held the steering wheel so comfortably, while his right reached for her waiting palm, so open to his touch, like waves coming home to the shore. Their eyes would meet for a split second, and he'd catch her gaze and smile, his eyes turning into half moons, before she'd look away, not knowing what to say.

Those were the things that jump-started her heart, fragments of moments that used to make her day.

He was sweet. He was cute when he tried. And underneath all the baggage, sje saw that he had a good, forgiving heart.

And so she fell.

Her world revolved around him. For a year, she hung onto his every word, latching herself into his million watt smile. She let herself go, not knowing whee she'd land, hoping he'd break her fall.

But he didn't, and she was hurt. Badly.

She realized how wrong she was to let herself believe the things she thought she'd seen. He was good, he was great. But he was not in love with her.

For her, he was the sun. To him, she was a star.

It took her a year to open her eyes and finally see reality. She was blinded by his light. He was attracted to her shine.

But he is not the sun.

Here's the truth that I'm trying so hard for anyone not to see: he has this quick, effortless way of hurting me. He says words that cut deep into my skin. Words which, once he speaks, never leave my mind for weeks. He gives me the deepest scars, and I hide them. More than once, he appeared to be less than I perceived him to be, and yet I pretend not to see. I choose to look away because nothing seems to be bad enough to keep me from feeling this way for him. He hurts me, emotionally, deliberately, and I turn the other cheek albeit knowing I deserve better. That I can find better.

The truth is this: he's not mine to lose, but I'm scared of losing him anyway. I'm so insecure and ashamed of myself and he's not helping the case. I see right through him. He's a good person over all, but it's not all the time that he's good. He can be really horrible. I've seen it. And yet, despite all that i've seen and heard, here I am, loving him from afar.

I feel stupid for feeling this way. I keep trying to stay away, to be able to finally move on, but he's really got a hold on me. 

I will not speak about the way your close proximity lights up every nerve ending in me. There's no space for that in my mind, when loudly, I can feel you start to fade from my life, creating this distance made of white noise, silent, but deafening.

You used to hang the moon and hold the stars in my black velvet skies. You still do, and I fear that it will not change for as long as I can look at you and see none of my feelings reflected back to me. There's a storm brewing in you yet again, and I'm trying to have the heart to believe that I will weather it, that I can weather it, and that this, too, shall pass.

Because so far, it always has.

But if this time, it's different, then I'm not gonna anchor you to my shore. There's a world out there for you to see, I guess. I must let you keep sailing, even withoutme, if that's what you need. You might come back like you always do. Or you could get washed away to a different land, one that knows not to limit you to what your eyes could see.

As for me, I'll be here, watching you ride off into the sunset. Remembering how they say ships were not built for safe harbors. So go on, brave the waves. Go find what you're looking for. Come back when you can, if you want to. I'll be the girl with the telescope, waiting for you.

If you could spare me one minute of your time, then that would definitely make my day. I'm no one to you. Your day could end well without me in it. Your life would still be complete if you hadn't met me... And yet, it's not the same for me.

It's astounding, really, how you can change a person's life with them having no effect in how you live yours. You're so clueless, sometimes, I just want to grab a rolling pin and beat you senseless with it. You make me happy. You hurt me. And yet, still, yet, you don't know.

I'm being my best patient self right now. For you. I admit, there are times when I know my life would have been so much easier if I never knew you, but I'd be lying to myself if I said I'd rather have that than be here with you now, wherever we are. Because even with how difficult things are today, you're here, and it matters to me. You're worth it. You matter.

You fund paradise

In someone else's eyes

As I sat, tight lipped

Heart gnawed on by jealousy's sharp teeth

And you looked on

You looked past

And told me

The pain won't last

But oh, how wrong you were.