I get it. I mean, I really do. I get you. I get why things are the way they are. I understand why things have happened the way they've happened. I know that you struggle with so much on the inside. You struggle to accept yourself as the amazing human being that I, and so many others, accept you as. You don't see how you deserve every single good thing this world has to offer, and you don't see how you deserve to be loved with all the love a heart has to give. You don't see the positive difference you make for every single person you come into contact with, and you don't see how this world is such a better place simply because you exist in it.

It's all the little things that add up to create the humongous difference that you make. You have so much going for you, and I just don't think you realize all the things you have to be grateful for. You have a personality unlike anybody else's in this world. Your outlook and sense of humor make sure you bring a good time with you everywhere you go! You're so smart and wise, and not just in the ordinary ways, either. Your intelligence is the kind that comes from not only understanding facts and figures, but understanding how those facts and figures can be used to better yourself and the world around you. It is easy from an outside perspective to see how you have a natural ability to bring out the best in others. You aren't satisfied with mediocrity, and you striving to be the best causes others to do the same.

From the very beginning of our time together I have looked up to you and respected your passion for greatness. Through your love and friendship, I have learned so much about life. It was only after becoming best friends with you that I learned who I really was. Your acceptance and companionship gave me the courage to love myself as I truly am, and it's for that very reason that a comfort exists between us unlike anything we'd ever felt before. Being best friends with someone as special as you truly makes me feel like I have genuinely achieved something monumental, and I hope you know that I value the bond we share with my whole heart.

There is a reason you make friends everywhere you go, and it's because of the care and concern you inherently show people. It's so easy for people to see the light that lives within you because the more they interact with you, the less dark their lives become. Once people experience how genuine, kind, and intelligent you are, you quickly become someone they want to be around more and more. There's a reason people's faces light up when they see you walking towards them, and I think that should tell you everything about the impact you have on the people lucky enough to meet you.

Like I said, I know you have a hard time seeing it, but you really are a star. You do something that so very few people do in this world. You make things better by just being apart of them. No matter where you go or what you do, you are constantly leaving things better than you found them. It's so very clear to see just how significant the difference is that you make. I'm not telling you this so you will get a big head. I'm telling you this so you will hopefully love you just as much as the rest of us do. You are one of those people that a person could never get over losing. Once a soul has lived life with your light, it's so very difficult to go back to the dark days without it. Thank you for being my best friend, and thank you from the bottom of my heart for loving me. I hope it's clear just how much I truly love you, too!

I wish we could go for another walk. Would you want to? I promise not to say anything stupid, to remind you of my foolishness. To never push you to share. I could answer any questions you may have, but I said it before, these words are useless. Sometimes you just need someone to share silence with, to be in solitude together. I could walk for miles with you that way. Hearing nothing but our footsteps and breathing. I know you'd have to slow your pace for me but we could find a rhythm. Maybe even a brief embrace of all life's curious beauty and shocking ugliness. At least we'd have each other, to make sure we don't walk too far. That we have enough strength to get back, to return to where we belong.

I miss you. And yes, that’s all I can say about it. I don’t know what we were or how we ended up here. All I know is that I miss you very much.

I miss you more than anything but I know you’re dealing with a lot right now. You’ve closed yourself off from almost everyone in your life. You’re simply going through the motions day by day and I get it, but I want you to know that I’m still here for you even if it’s just from a distance. Take all the time you need but know that you don’t have to be alone if you don’t want to be. I wish that you’d been dealt a better hand in life. It really isn’t fair and I am so sorry. I wish I could carry your burdens so that you could finally breathe again. You deserve the time and space to heal. You deserve to feel like yourself again, and you will. I know that you will. I love you. You deserve to be happy.

I ruin everything I touch.

Every space I occupy becomes a place to escape from.

I don’t know what I contribute, it all just feels like useless chatter.

I don’t know where I fit anymore, anywhere.
I don’t know where my place is.
I don’t know if I have one.

I’m barely talking to anyone, I can’t.
I can’t burden the people around me.
I isolate.

I can’t explain what’s going on, I can’t ask for help.
I don’t know if I can be helped.

I don’t know what there is to be done.
I don’t think there is anything to be done.

Some of us just aren’t meant for this world, I don’t think.

I’ll stay away, I think I just want to fade away.
When I’m gone it’ll be like I was never there at all.

I know he’s my husband. But, he’s an awful person. So, I’ve decided you can have him now. I don’t want anything to do with it. I don’t want to pleasure him: that’s your job now. It’s 100% on you.

If he’s unhappy, that’s your fault now. I’m transferring him to you. Spiritually. That’s your problem now. I won’t text him or get in the way when I know you’re with him.

Just because someone’s parents are still together doesn’t mean that they had a good example. It just means he had a toxic example.

I wish I had it in me to let the thought of you go. I wish I could step back into the quiet safety of weeks ago, when my chest was guarded by scar tissue and the fortress walls that others forced me to build. Yet here I am: an empty shell, disarmed. What have you done? What have I done? I thought I was insulated by instinct, but you walked right through. Or perhaps I was simply so desperate for a pulse that I showed you where the mortar was weak and helped you tear it down.

I don't know you. We’re practically strangers. So why does the craving feel like withdrawal? You should be a footnote, yet you eclipse everything. I can’t eat. Sleep is fractured. There is this suffocating swirl of fury and helplessness. Gods, I feel so helpless. I know the anatomy of this grief, my own mind cannibalizing itself, but this knowledge changes nothing. The only relief would be your voice, yet I’m the one who cut the wire. I stand by the decision. The logic holds up. So why does being right feel like being torn apart?

All week I stared at my phone, secretly praying you’d ignore the line I drew. Do you remember what I said about my ability to cry? I haven't been able to shed a single tear... Just a burning knot in my stomach and a yearning so violent it bends the room around me. I told myself you were replaceable. A lie told by a coward. I saw how deeply you could cut me, panicked, and sprinted the other way. And it did make sense. It still does. We are an impossible match, and there were a hundred reasons to nip it in the bud.

But missing you is a sensory blackout. We found each other at the absolute worst time. Maybe I was already fractured enough that anyone who looked closely would have broken me. And here I am, bargaining again. Rationalizing, endlessly. Fuck. The truth is, I wanted you. I mapped my days around the chance of your voice, to know more about you, to peel back my skin and show you what was underneath. When your flaws became too loud to ignore, I blamed you for hurting me simply by being human. Maybe the forced silence was intentional, maybe it wasn't, but running away wasn't logic. I was so angry at myself for allowing my heart to fall so thoroughly. I ran because I couldn't bear to be this seen.

But aren't we both fluent in this violence? We were fed on love that drew blood. We learned that devotion has to hurt to be real, so we weaponize our affection, punishing the people we hold dear, daring them to stay anyway.  As we always did. When I look at you, I see a mirror. The very reflection I am desperate to nurture, staring back with wounded eyes, ready to bite if I get too close. And so, when I ache so much for having left you, it is because I am, just like so many before, abandoning myself too. It's not fair to hold you to the expectation of surviving this reflection.

So, at the end of the day, it was better like this...

I write to you as if the simple act of writing could undo all the horrors in the world, as if knowing the right words to say could instantly make everything better than it is right now.

I write to you because there is sometimes nothing else to do with all these feels inside me. If I don't write them then I can't rest.

I write to you to imagine your smile, in the morning afternoon and evening, the thought of your hair threaded through my hands and all the pretty little words I want to say instead embroiled in a single kiss.

I write to you to express how important you've become, to realise how one person has managed to occupy such a space in my heart that it no longer stopped being about who we could be, and who I thought you were, and instead about who you right now, who you will be, how you look unguarded in those moments between waking and sleeping.

I write to you because, there is nothing that could stop me loving you. There is nothing that could stop me wanting you. There is nothing that could make me want you less, there is nothing that could make me unhappier than your sadness, or more frustrated than your distance.

I write to you.

I write to you, because there is nobody else for me on this planet that could pull the enormity of these feelings out of my chest. I'm crying as I write to you, in a good way.

I just write, to you.

I am sorry that I never said goodbye. That I chose to be a coward and hide. That my last words to you were accusatory and then I left you behind. I didn't think you would mind when all I could see was your back. I was wrong for that.

There's no need to get into the specifics but your approach was wrong too, and it kills me that you seemed to have zero accountability for it. You seem to think you were perfect and did everything right. Is it more important for you to stand on moral high ground formed from a mirage than it is to have an honest discussion about your own actions?

Goddammit I will never hate you, but I hate how things went down when you stopped showing up. I hate that you didn't have the guts to say why. Yes, I was a coward at the end but at least I had the courage to come to you in the beginning. Maybe it wasn't cowardice but courage to leave you in the end.

That's why I haven't been able to get past this. I don't know if I was right or wrong for me to leave. I know how I did leave was wrong, but maybe leaving at all was wrong. Maybe we could have found common ground if you had been willing to meet in the middle instead of feeling like you had to look down on me.

You were almost 100% right in the end. I didn’t deserve how you loved me when I ended up hurting you with my words and actions. I didn’t deserve how you loved me when you gave me chances to course-correct our relationship. And in the end I didn’t deserve the love you still gave me after we broke up and I wouldn’t leave you alone and give you time when that was all you asked of me. I was wrong, you were right. The only thing you were wrong about is that I deserve to find someone that makes me happy. Because even to this day, the only one I can think about or want is you. And you no longer want anything to do with me.

Is there even a "we" anymore?? Do you still even want this? I know I seem more distant and "colder" but it's only cause I'm trying to not get too attached. You used to text me ALL the time and now you seem to not care if we don't talk the whole day. Why am I even tripping over this it's not like we were ever something official anyways, ugh I don't know man I just miss you. Thats it. Bye.

Coffee together before the kids wake up, crosswords and books in the evening, elaborate puzzles that span weeks on a board under the couch. Little moments of connection and cooperation.

Maybe these moments are idealized; Things should emerge naturally from shared interests, not plotted out in a life plan.

But they mean a lot to me.

Exploring the way your mind works is romantic. I want to know if you can solve 12 down in the Sunday Times, and how you came about that information. Do you scrounge for edge pieces or hone in on the colors and textures of the picture. Coffee black is fine, but you have to try this potion I brewed.

Maybe you'd like it too.

She felt it too.
She saw it in the way you mirrored each other.
She caught it in your eyes.
She didn’t miss the moment you bit your lip (blush).
She trusted that if the energy was real, your paths would cross again.
She has a really good reason for not making a move, so the ball has to be in your court.
She will explain.

I don’t even know where to begin, except to say thank you. Thank you for caring about me, for being patient with me, and for seeing something in me that I struggle to see in myself. I know your intentions are genuine, and I’m sorry if my actions have ever made you feel like your efforts didn’t matter. They did, more than you know.

The truth is, I’ve spent so much of my life struggling with my own worth that I don’t always know how to accept the love people give me. I find it easier to care for others than to show myself the same kindness. I can reassure everyone else that they’re enough, yet struggle to believe it when someone tells me the same.

I think a lot of this comes from things I’ve never fully healed from. Being bullied by people I thought were friends, growing up without the affection and reassurance I needed from my father, and learning to protect myself from being hurt have all shaped the way I see myself and others. Somewhere along the way, I learned how to give love, but not how to receive it.

I overthink everything. I worry about saying the wrong thing, disappointing people, and being misunderstood. I hide how I feel because I’m afraid that being honest about my struggles will push people away. And, ironically, by trying to protect myself from rejection, I sometimes create the very distance I’m afraid of.

I know my intentions don’t erase the impact of my actions. I know my silence can look like indifference, my fear can look like dishonesty, and my withdrawal can make people question whether I care. I’m genuinely sorry for the times I’ve hurt people who were only trying to be there for me. My feelings have always been real, even when I haven’t known how to express them.

I’m tired of fighting battles that nobody can see. Tired of questioning myself, pretending I’m okay, and feeling like I should have figured everything out by now. Being a grown-up doesn’t mean I automatically have the tools to deal with things I was never taught how to handle. I’m still learning, and honestly, some days I don’t know where to begin.

Sometimes, I feel like walking away is easier than risking disappointing the people I care about. I convince myself that distancing myself will protect them from my struggles, but deep down, I know it doesn’t solve anything. I don’t want to push people away. I don’t want to make love difficult. I just don’t always know how to let people in without feeling vulnerable or afraid.

I wish I knew how to change all of this. I wish I could promise that I’m going to be okay and that I’ll never fall back into these patterns. But I don’t want to make promises just to avoid disappointing anyone. The truth is, I’m struggling, I’m exhausted, and I’m still trying to understand myself.

Please know that your kindness has never gone unnoticed. Your love has never been meaningless, and your efforts have never been wasted. Even when I struggle to show it, I appreciate you more than I can explain.

I’m sorry for the times I’ve made you question my feelings, for the things I’ve left unsaid, and for the moments when my fear has spoken louder than my heart. I know that caring about someone means more than simply having good intentions, and I want to learn how to show up for the people I love in healthier ways.

I wish I had learned sooner that I don’t have to earn love by being useful, strong, or there for everyone else. That I’m allowed to struggle, make mistakes, ask for help, and still be worthy of being loved.

I don’t have everything figured out, and I know I have work to do. But I’m trying to be honest about where I am, even when it’s uncomfortable.

Thank you for caring when I’ve struggled to care for myself. Thank you for being patient with me, even when I’ve made it difficult. And thank you for seeing something in me when I couldn’t see it myself.

Please don’t mistake my struggle to accept love for a lack of love in my heart. I care deeply. Sometimes, I’m just so afraid of being hurt or hurting others that I don’t know what to do with the love I’m given.

I’m sorry for the ways my struggles have affected you, and I’m grateful that you’ve tried to understand me.

I may not know how to find my way through everything just yet, but I know I don’t want fear to keep deciding how I live or how I love.

I’m still learning how to let myself be loved, and I hope, in time, I can learn to believe that I deserve it, too.

A snow covered spring day’s eclipse;

A hot summer day’s river dips.

A mountain top;

A favorite coffee shop.

A trip to an island paradise;

A note left waiting to surprise.

A long, hard hiking trail;

A dolphin watch sail.

A joke told, known by just us two;

A silly voice that sounds like a you-know-who.

A belief that it would all be forever;

Ended on a whim: showing it wasn’t to be whatsoever.

————————————————————

I still can’t believe this has happened.

My entire life was flipped upside down overnight.

No warning. Everything changed. Blindsided.

I feel something different every day.

I’ve had some fun days in the short amount of time already.

I have my ways of coping. Some are not good. Some are.

Last night’s events probably weren’t in the good category.

But I needed it. I needed to feel desired again. What happened here made me feel as if I wasn’t.

I’ll face this head on very soon and handle this with class, but they’re not taking me today on their terms.

I can’t say much. It’s not fair.

Grief. Anger. Confusion. Humiliation. Sadness. Betrayal. They just cycle.

...this is a shit excuse to reach out and check on you. I miss you. I'm sorry I got so hurt by what you said. It doesn't remove the two years of love you showed me and I don't want to shit on that experience. I just don't think I deserved that, and I don't think you honestly ever had to worry about your safety with me and I wish you would have volunteered that organically.

I hope you're doing well. I hope you're happy. I think about that a lot. Like you better be way happier cause if not then what was all this for? Half-joking. I really do want you to find happiness. (I believe this to be unreceived and until I find out otherwise, and I had to leave a breadcrumb just in case.)

Once you left, I tried to put it all behind me. Until now.

Recently, memories and the feeling of missing you just keep coming at me in more and more frequent waves. Why now, years later?

I wish I could find you out there in the ether. But maybe the lesson is that I’m not suppose to. That which is for us will not pass us by. We were in each other’s lives when we were meant to cross paths. And I suppose nothing more than that.

You were my favorite notification for several years. If only you’d pop up on my phone at least once more, maybe that’s all I need to quiet these ghosts (but who am I kidding lol).

Don’t violate my personal space
I am working on myself at my pace, I am grateful for your help, I felt loved , for a while unconditionally. I am sorry if I love bombed unintentionally

It’s hurtful now, please try and understand if I did anything good for you, anything positive , please let me be and stop violating my mind.

I want to love someone else and let me. I am obliged to. And stop with your judgements about me . Just tell me what you want, what this is , your interpretation of it clearly once if you have the courage. I still haven’t made up my mind. Please try and understand. I can’t give you what you want. Nothing is unconditional. It shows.

Don’t fool yourself. No tactics are going to work , no amount of games are going to work. Please leave me alone because I cannot anymore , I cannot.

There’s this song I love. Sometimes all I wish is to speak in the language of every song I ever loved.

If I could explain myself… my grief— the infinite euphoria and tears i’ve experienced in myself and everyone I’ve ever loved. The depths I went to with the souls I wished more than anything everyone could experience the way I have. Their stories to me deserve to be heard. Their stories shaped my entire existence. Who they were, who they became, who I became.

The grey area, every color, every laugh and cried out conversation— is so vivid. I wish could show you.

When the air was heavy and I couldn’t breathe. When the darkness almost swallowed me whole— I knew love. I know love.

What an incredible life. After everything, How lucky am I?

I wish I could show you.

- j

My Love, I am still here.

Ever present as is Nyx in the shadows, guiding us as the "Dark Night of the Soul" through confusion; enabling us to become stars that shine for others as we begin anew;

Ever present as Hecate, the Moon in the night sky, a torch in the darkness. Her spirit guides hop across our paths; Transforming us to return as Cheshire Cat, while protecting us from the Queen of Hearts;

Through the journey of Clarity and Transformation Nyx and Hecate so lovingly brought forth, the Eye of Horus appears with promises of healing and wholeness; guiding us hand-in-hand through the marshes as darkness gives way to butterflies that consume our vision and very being.

I am thankful to all Three, for this journey has been protected by the Divine; a journey that we we have been destined to undertake since the material plain was conceived.

I am grateful for You, so indescribably grateful. For the Divine has delivered their top-ranking Angel to me to cherish until the day I perish.

With Love and Gratitude, to You and the Divine.

Tomorrow the grand jury will decide his future. I can’t figure out how I feel about this, as my emotions are buried deep into darkness and despair. I am fighting to see light, but I’m losing. You should be here, but as the man I knew before you became the monster again. I’ve waited over a year and a half for this day, but I was disappointed when they didn’t prepare for the full case I provided to them. It’s giving me less hope I’ll get justice for being assaulted by him so many times. The justice system is never on our side, but it’s hard to know that 12 strangers will be traumatized by seeing the videos he made during the assaults. They will read texts he sent boasting about it while I slept and had zero memory of what he did. They will see pictures of my wounds from those two bloody nights of torture. How could you say I deserved that?

You are in my thoughts today. I know you would not be here to support me while I fight for justice against another man. You blamed me for what happened to me once. You really are a terrible person. But my heart aches anyway. That’s the prison of being a person who loves with all heart. I do hate you for what you have done, even more than the man who could get over 20 indictments tomorrow. Today is hard. Tomorrow will be tough, but deep down, I almost want them to deny it. I don’t think I can deal with a trial that most likely will be very public. I don’t want to be responsible with anyone who gets traumatized by that evidence. Those poor jurors have to see what I lived through. You never let me talk about it because you suck. Fucking monster. I still sit here and wish things were different with you. Right now, I’m sad and hurt. I need someone to be there tomorrow holding my hand and telling me it’s ok. No one will be there. I wish you were, though. Not you as I know you now, but as the man I fell hard for, even if that man wasn’t real.

I finished my victims statement. My phone will play a ticking clock for 15 mins while I lay on the floor with my face buried into a pillow wrapped in a navy pillow case. Just like he made me do so many times. Once the clock stops, I’ll get up and stare at the jury in silence. That’s the life of a woman who was brutally raped, more than once, for a long time. Silence is their friend, so tomorrow I will remain silent, just as I was forced to be by you and him. They will then be forced to watch hours of videos that will never leave their mind. I still can’t watch them, but I live with the scars he created on my body with several knives. Will it be enough? Probably not. It’s so rare to get an indictment, even when there are videos and texted confessions. In the end, I won’t be a victim anymore, and will be looked at like I’m the monster. I wish I was the monster because the pain runs deep for what you did once you knew what he had done. They may wonder how I’m still alive and even I wonder how I didn’t end it. How can a girl who has gone through that still have the ability to love a man. I don’t know, I just do. I still can love, but I don’t want to anymore.

The worst feeling is being alone in this and having no one to hold my hand tomorrow and tell me to keep fighting a battle I don’t want to fight anymore. I just needed love, but what I got was chaos, destruction, used like trash, and then made to be the villain both of you are. I’m ok, just sad today. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. You lied, you abused, and then you forced me to hold secrets a pure heart should never be asked to hold. That indictment for you is coming another day. Tomorrow, I will be alone, standing in front of 12 jurors who don’t want to believe monsters exist. I’ll walk away saying what I always do: I just need love. Does that man who can love me purely exist? I don’t think so because two monsters harmed me and I’m the one everyone sees as a danger. I just wanted and want love, but I have to accept that they took my chance away from me by doing things I never asked for. That’s the lonely life of a woman who became victim to two men for different reasons. Maybe someday I’ll have the heart of a good one. But today, I’m screaming in silence because no one will listen anyway. That’s ok. It’s just rape and murder, right. Isn’t that what you said. Fuck all the way off, down the hill, and into hell. I was once beautiful and one day, I will be again. You will always be you and nothing worse than that.

I miss you.
This whole thing played out
perfectly and precisely,
that this is the result.
Because I don’t even know what I miss.
But the emotional landscape persists
To be expressed
And this satisfies it.
…

And we’re like oil and water.
I must be the water
For me,
there’s something always
ready and willing
to receive you.
Expands to allow the fullness of you.
Our humanness.
Our shortcomings.
Through the transparency of me.
And I am fascinated by it.
By the way I don’t really have to justify
a thing.
By the time I see it.
It is already done.
I just find myself always wanting
to show the path it took.
Because
What do you mean?
There is something ahead
of what I can explain,
always ready to receive you.
…

But you are not here
Because you never even
Saw me.
…
Nor I, you.
…
I must’ve wanted someone to miss.
Who better than you,
The one I missed.
The empty ghost
With the realest touch.

I'm starting to realize how reckless I've really been, and I'm touched, and humbled, that you've been so patient with me. I understand now: this isn't the world we grew up in. This one's more rigid, more legalistic, less forgiving, less understanding of shades of gray.
You've risked so much just to make sure I wouldn't doubt you, and I insisted on doubting you anyway. I was insecure. You're just. So. Beautiful.
You tolerated so much nonsense from me, cleaned up the messes I created, forgave me when I didn't deserve it.
I'm not going anywhere. I'll be patient. I'll wait as long as it takes.
I love you so much.
Don't you ever doubt - I'm always still watching.

Edit: God, people have sick minds. This is for a person who might worry I'm ignoring them, because I have to be discreet. Still watching, even if I'm not commenting. I hate this sub.

im not jealous that you found someone new

im not jealous that you take them places

im not jealous that you make more effort for him

i think ive made peace with the fact that your life continued after me

but sometimes i wonder what its like to be loved by you now

to know the version of you that i kept hoping to see

to receive the effort i spent asking for

and i hate that i even think about it

because i dont want you back

i dont want to be the person you choose after someone else didnt work out

i just wish i could stop wondering why it was so hard for you to give me the things that might come so naturally to you now

and maybe thats what im actually jealous of

not them

not their relationship with you

but the thought that someone else gets to know you while im still trying to forget you

that you get to be a part of their everyday life

while some days, you still find your way into mine without even trying

and the worst part is...

i dont even know if you ever think about me anymore

but somehow, im still here thinking about you