You would eat sliced bananas on your cereal in the mornings.

You told me they were the only fruit you liked, so I bought them in bulk and you stuffed your face with them, and that made me smile.

I don't know when I stopped smiling at that.

Maybe it was when you stopped eating your breakfast at home.

You used to kiss me in the nighttime before we fell asleep.

Your mouth was warm and sweet, and your lips were so thin but they kissed so well that I never noticed then.

I don't know when I began to notice how thin your lips really were.

Maybe it was when they stopped speaking to me for reasons I don't understand.

Maybe it was when they stopped kissing me before the lights went out at night.

You used to sit me on your lap while you watched football games.

I never knew a thing about the game or the plays, but you wanted me there to root on your team and to make you smile just by looking at my face.

I'd cheer when your team did something right, and I'd cry when they lost because them losing broke your heart, and your broken heart meant my broken soul; I loved you just that much.

I don't know when I stopped sitting on your lap and cheering for a sport I never cared to understand and kissing you when they scored just because you were happy, and I was happy just because you were.

Maybe it was when you dropped the football games at home for football games at bars with friends and friends of friends and strangers whose names you didn't know, as if their company was better than mine.

Maybe you just stopped liking the game.

You used to watch me paint like I really was an artist and like you were my biggest fan.

You'd stand in the doorway and stare at my hands, and you'd never say a word as if lost in the colors on my canvas.

I asked you once what you were thinking while you watched me create something out of nothing, and you told me that you'd been questioning how God had come up with the concept of me.

Had He spoken me into existence with the single word "beauty"? Had He thought of you and placed me in your path just to keep you running after something too grand to ever hold?

I never meant to cry when you said things like that because crying was never my thing. But you turned me into a person who cared about the tiny things and the big things and you more than anything else.

I don't know when you stopped watching me paint, stopped leaning against the doorframe and staring at my hands.

Maybe it was when all of the color left the world for you. When you lost your vision and your purpose and everything that made your world beautiful and bright and worth it.

You were always beautiful. And bright. And worth it.

You used to think that I was beautiful. And bright. And worth it.

I don't know when that changed.

Maybe it was when you let go of my hand and found value in the less valuable things.

Maybe it was when you walked away from love because love wasn't something you could define with reason.

Maybe we're better now.

Maybe we're worse.

But I still buy bananas in bulk by instinct and by hope that you'll show up one day and eat them just before they spoil.

You never do.