text: When I loved you, I loved you deeply. I poured so much of my being into you, that there was nothing left to fill the mold of who I was supposed to be, so I depended on you to tell me. You broke pieces of me, little by little harboring them in a glass display case to wander past each time you thought of me. And when I sobbed at night, it was you that held me despite being the reason my lungs couldn’t maintain the air to speak and the reason tears escaped my eyes, running across my face like meteors. And when I left, you still had your hold on me. Never keeping me too far. Giving me many gifts that were inspired by my niches you cared to remember. It was like you were saying to me *No one will love you like I did.* And when I still kept those gifts because for some reason their presence only symbolized that no one did love me like you, but I didn’t want them to. Every time I start to get close to someone the acidic pain that you left in my veins begins its dreadful current straight to the command center of my brain which makes the conscious decision to shut them out. *No one will understand you like I did.* The pain that shoots through me only makes me feel that it’s true. No one will understand me like you did, but that’s exactly how you were able to make your poisonous words so effective yet seem like such a requirement to live. Before I had actually left, you knew exactly what to say and do to make me come back to bed with you. To lie next to my attacker and believe that he was my lover. You made me believe that love was supposed to be that way. Hurting each other as deeply as you could because it’s the withstanding of pain that proves you belong together. Secretly despising each other only makes the sex better. And when I swallowed those pills because I couldn’t stand a life where we didn’t make sense, yet made so much sense, it was you who I saw in the foggy haze of revival. Certain movies I can’t see, certain smells that scrape at my insides with a painful coldness. Certain places I refuse to go, people I refuse to see. *No one will care for you like I did.* I think the thing that I hate the most is that there are nights where I lie alone in a bed too small for me, in a room too empty for me, and wish that you would roll over and embrace me again. What a foolish idea. I tried turning my mind off, prescription drugs weren’t enough to keep my mind from trailing off into fits of PTSD and episodes of dissociation. The sadness I feel when I start to think about being with someone else is too much to bear. I can feel the anxiety of even thinking of it, losing someone again. Letting someone have control over me. I can’t begin to describe how much it hurts that I may never have someone like that again. I miss the love you gave when it was genuine love. When you actually cared, but at the moment I can’t think of any moments where you may have shown that you do. As this year ends, I am left with a melancholy reminder that 12 months ago we were happy in our little apartment with our dog. Six months ago I was still yours. Broken, but yours. I have damaged myself mentally, spiritually, and financially desperate to try to find anything that will make me feel like everyday is not a waste. Like I don’t regret taking the wrong pills and confessing my plan to someone else. Since then it hasn’t felt worth it. Still, I live. Barely surviving but surviving. Even surviving a car crash that seemed to make matters even worse, yet it’s my soul that is telling me to strive forward. Something in my soul is telling me that something big is coming. I hope it is something to set me right, make things better, make me stronger and more independent. I never knew independence when I was with you, because you were so much a part of me. Now I hope that I can continue forwards towards whatever paradise my soul is secretly and so subconsciously leading me towards. I hope I can truly begin to focus on myself and be the person I need to be and truly am. I just hope you know that you didn’t fully break me, but I appreciate you trying to.