I used to hear a voice.

I always heard a tiny voice inside me say I'd be better off alone. It would tell me that I wasn't someone to be loved, or someone who could be loved.

And after years of that voice getting louder and stronger and reflecting itself into my reality, I met you.

When I first met you, I knew. I knew you'd change my life forever.

I didn't even know you yet your eyes were familiar.

I knew our paths would intertwine to some extent and I couldn't wait to start our journey together.

Then, the best thing to ever happen happened, we fell, very deep, very fast. We fell in to intense love.

I fell in love with your child-like persona and your old man soul.

I fell for your eyes, your gaze, the way you'd say my name, the way you made me feel safe without even trying, the way you'd just nod and laugh at what ever I was saying even though you didn't understand.

The long journeys on the bus where we'd spend most of our dates on purpose. The miniscule ways in which you slowly let me in.

Your head on my shoulder and my head on your shoulder. That's how we fell in love.

You played every string of mine in such beautiful harmony that I was sure it'd never end.

Everyone told us not to but we did because we believed in our love, we believed in each other, in our passion for one another, in our connection.

Those people, those us, they were beautiful.

I wish they were here today.

I could never have imagined that we'd be where we are now.

Tired.

Broken.

Empty.

Too tired to keep going.

Too broken to fight.

Too empty to heal.

I never thought you'd stop looking at me the way you used to and look at me the way you do now.

I didn't know I'd lose you over and over again.

And even though we had lost our way before, I thought we had made it back home but I was wrong.

We never made it back home.

Our relationship became an abandoned attraction park, everything sort of looks the same but nothing works anymore.

Your gaze was different.

You know that person in your life who you know that no matter what you got their back and they have yours, it doesn't even need to be said but if it was life and death you'd trust them with your life?

That's what I thought we had. But we didn't.

My mistake. Completely my mistake.

I perceived our relationship my way and you perceived it in yours.

And now, I stand before you, completely broken.

Searching for any bit of you in your eyes, any bit of love left for me...

All I see is a stranger, a familiar stranger.

My brain captures every instance that I tried to walk away but couldn't.

I could give all the reasons my brain can come up with but I just so desperately wanted you to love me the way you did again.

I wanted us to fall in love again, and I knew it could be done because I had done it for you.

I searched in the darkness of what became my heart and I chose to re-open that box for you and I achieved it so why couldn't you?

I know the answers to that question. That's what hurts the most.

I knew all along.

My sweet, sweet love.

I fell down the rabbit hole and got lost in wonderland.

Couldn't find my way home.

I wish you'd have come looking for me.

Instead you became the ongoing riddles taunting me.

I wish you knew how scary it was in here so you could see that even though it seems far from it, I've kept it together as much as has been humanly possible.

I got lost in wonderland and in between I lost you too.

You're my love, my heart, my home.

Now I must find a new home, within me.

And after all that, that voice was right.

If I had listened to that voice I would have never had my deepest fears come alive in the shape of you.

And even though loving you was the best thing I've ever done, I don't know if I would do it all again.

I don't know if loving you and being loved by you was greater than the pain of losing you.

But I don't need to make those decisions right now.

Now I must move forward in a world where you don't exist.

Soon you'll be a faint fragrance, a familiar smell.

One that I will avoid at all costs so that I never feel your absence again.

Even though my heart breaks, I will pause the pain, so that you may have time.

Even though my body longs for you to hold me one last time, I can't try because you'll say yes and hold me, and then you'll let me go and I'll be the one that's broken.

What ever is left of my heart still beats for you and only sings your name.

Damn, I wish I listened to that voice.

She was right.