I Can't Hold On to You, and I Can't Let You Go

A dream brought back every regret I had carefully buried. The love is still here. You are not.

Last night I dreamed about you. You were smiling and asked why I kept staring. I answered with red eyes: why did you leave me?

Maybe the missing you has gone so deep that even my dreams will not leave me alone. Losing you taught me what it actually looks like: one meal a day, losing weight in days, crying until nothing comes out, whole nights without sleep.

I kept telling myself to let things take their course.

But it was never really acceptance. It was helplessness, reluctance, and a quiet refusal to believe this is the ending.

As soon as I think about a future without you in it, my chest goes tight, my heart aches, and my eyes fill before I can stop them.

Holding on to you and letting you go are both things I cannot do.

When I have had a drink and talk about you with friends, the emptiness is impossible to describe. I do not blame you. I only think that I was not good enough, and too sensitive.

I have not been truly happy since you left. I practised smiling in the mirror, and only then understood what a forced smile is.

From the moment we got together, I never imagined we would drift apart. When I love someone properly, I do not keep an exit. I just wanted, greedily, to keep walking with you.

You became the place I rested my heart. Life was already heavy, and now that place is gone. I am not sure how to keep going.

I wish there were a pause button. It feels as though everything disappeared in a second, while the attachment only got deeper. Time has not helped at all.

I am still loving you in my own quiet way. I do not know whether that is right, but there is no ill will in it. I do not want my love to make you feel pressured or unhappy.

I cannot let go of the thought that the affection you once gave me will one day belong to someone else.

I love you. I always have.