Even my bruises ache with yesterdays. I’ve lost track of the days because there’s too many to see you again anyway. It doesn’t matter because you’re still there and I’m still here and I’ve said it a thousand times and each time it doesn’t get any easier and I’ve lost sense of everything now that you’re gone. I’m past the point of being sad, and now comes the anger. I’m angry at the ground for stretching so thin between us and I’m angry with distance and footprints and any evidence of you coming through. Because there’s only so many times I can cross these lines and keep myself from tearing apart right down the middle and sending half of me with you - not like that would change much anyway. At least I’d be home. I’ve spent so many years looking for something like this and it ran into me under yellow streetlights in spring and I’ve never regretted something so much. It’s hard to add up all the mistakes we’ve made because I’ve made the mistake of letting this happen in the first place. They’ve hidden behind the shadows we’ve made staring at the stars that are stretched farther than we could ever be - so I guess I shouldn’t complain. But I have, and I will, and I can’t seem to stop. I wish we could hide forever the way we did. The way we wanted. Home, what you called it. It’s only home when you’re around. I’ve hoped for a long time for some way to make this alright. I’m ripping apart the bones of everything I’ve ever known and to put it simply I’m scared and I’m not sure how to fix it. And all I’ve ever asked for is to be okay. But I don’t know how far I have to go or how many buttons I have to push and I’m terrified one day I’ll push the wrong one and everything will fall apart. 

Lately I’ve been writing just to fill the page and none of it means anything and I’m not sure this does either. I guess the point is I’m writing these words with you wracking my brain and I’m lost in this and you. And I know we’re both lost and we just don’t have the means or the maps to find our way out this time. I don’t think we ever have. I’m still looking for some way out of how stupid and naive I feel because this is getting old and I can only bury so much so deep inside myself before all the buttons press themselves. 

Some days I can’t even put a finger on what’s making me this way and I can bet anything I wouldn’t feel this way if you didn’t have to go. 

Sometimes I get lost in spending time with you and then I wake up and realize you’re still going to have to leave and I’m going to have to stay, and I still haven’t figured out how to make it okay. And I’m afraid I never will. I could fill up a novel of the reasons why this is unfair, a list of questions to ask the universe why we’re just far enough out of reach. But all I’d be left with is a book no one understands written in a language no one can decipher and an empty head because I’ve given my thoughts to you. 

I’m afraid to tell you some things. Like how often I wish you were closer, and how many times you cross my mind when I’m alone because I miss you so much. Or how sometimes I can feel my bones cracking with the miles between us. I’ve been so afraid of tossing everything out on the table because I’m so scared that it will hang in the air forever, and I’ll lose everything with the wind and the weather and they’ll follow me everywhere we’ve been and never let me back in. 

I’ve been talking and talking and I’ve lost track of time zones and mile markers and I’ve turned off every single alarm clock so I never have to wake up and deal with anything I’ve been trying to avoid. As of this moment I’ve shut off the ideas I’ve had and I’ve spent weeks slowing the gears of my mind in an attempt to change what I am and what I’ve done and what I’ve lost. Because I’m exhausted. I’ve been asleep every day and I only wake up when the sun goes down. It’s like I’m peeling paint and every time you come around I fall apart and every time it’s getting harder and harder and there’s absolutely no way to change things.

I wish there was some way to gain some bit of confidence when it comes to these type of things. But I seem to be asking everyone and all I get back is more questions which just dig me deeper into this hole I’m in. 

I’m still floating in the air above everything I’ve ever loved and I’m worried one day the ball will drop and I’ll be stuck wherever I land and I’ll be farther away from you. I know that seems ridiculous and maybe somewhat redundant - like always - but all I want to do is shoot the moon down from above you because it’s the only thing keeping me from rolling away with the tides, and lately it hasn’t even been giving me a chance. 

I’m pretty sure I’ve used every word in the book to describe you and it’s still not enough. I keep every single word you’ve ever said in a jar next to my bed. In the stars I gave to you, in a book under my bed, taped under the covers of my favorite books. And I write them on pages and I throw them away so no one else can have them. I wrap them around the veins surrounding my heart and I carry them around close to my chest and push them up against me and maybe one day I’ll let them soak in and I’ll become something else entirely.