What I’ve learned about being in love is that you will fall in love with with the curve of his spine, the form of his smile, the structure of his bones, and the way his hair flops out of place. I’ve watched you grow but I didn’t know it would be out of me. I get this feeling in my chest where I’ve been misplaced but I don’t have the heart to look for you anymore.

Sometimes I think about that kiss we had in your car February of 2015 where it felt like I had just seen fireworks for the first time and I couldn’t tell if I was excited or scared. I was scared. It felt like I had to be taken to the emergency room because I swear to God I thought I felt my heart trying to climb out of my body towards yours. Sometimes I swear I can hear your voice in the creases of my bedsheets at home and I sleep on the floor. I catch myself running my hands over the things you touched the most and then I stop myself. You know that feeling when you pull a shirt out of the dryer and you put it on right away because of how warm it is? You used to be that feeling, and I’m convinced that behind all of our chasing and fighting to kiss other people we were just trying to get each other to love one another again.

I read somewhere that anyone who has ever been in love can tell you that a person can drown you with more efficiency than an ocean. I don’t want you back but I can tell you that there are parts of my life that feel like they move slower without you. Every time you would lay a hand on me, my world began again and I can tell you that’s where I kept losing myself. Every time you touched me I lost myself. I've spent so long trying to figure out where it hurt. This is where it hurt. Not in my head or my heart but right next to you. This is where I kept dying and where everything fell apart. One time I convinced myself that I didn’t have to measure things by how many times you’ve hurt me, that the only thing that mattered was when I looked at you to see if your arms were open or not. That’s not the case anymore.

What I’ve learned is as time goes on, it still hurts no matter how hard I try to distract myself and keep busy because the wounds are not healing, they are just reopening every time I wake up. I can say that loving you was like getting up in the middle of the night and dangling my feet over the bed hoping no monsters would get me. I’m so in love with you and I’m trying not to be but it’s so hard to breathe these days. I don’t regret loving you but I regret dying for you every day. At times I wish life would just slow down and other times I wish it would just stop. When I look at my shadow everyday it reminds me of how I was always the one chasing after you. We tried to start something that never even began. You were at times mean and ruthless but you looked at me straight in the eyes and said you loved me and course, I believed you. I walk into gift shops and I don’t know why I still look for your name. I'm convinced we pushed each other away with hands that said "please don't go" because it's been so long, and I still think about you every single day.