Favorite Person
People say
"Just let them go."
As if they're asking me to unclench my fist.
No.
They're asking me to perform open-heart surgery
without anesthesia.
Because losing your favorite person
doesn't feel like a breakup.
It feels like reaching inside your own chest,
wrapping your fingers around the only thing
keeping you alive
and ripping.
It.
Out.
Then taking that heart
that stupid, loyal, beautiful heart
and tearing it into pieces
so tiny
they look like confetti.
Congratulations.
The party's over.
Now put it back together.
So I do.
I spend days...
weeks...
months...
on my knees,
trying to find every piece.
But there are always some missing.
Always.
So I press the broken edges together anyway.
I tell myself,
"No one will notice."
But I notice.
Every beat sounds different.
Every breath hurts.
Do you know what it's like
to grieve someone
who is still alive?
To miss someone
who's still waking up,
still laughing,
still breathing
just not with you?
That kind of grief
has no funeral.
No casseroles.
No sympathy cards.
Just silence.
And a ribcage that feels like it's collapsing inward,
bones becoming knives,
lungs forgetting
how to be lungs.
People ask
"Why don't you move on?"
Because when they leave,
I don't lose them.
I lose myself.
Then...
sometimes...
they come back.
Everyone celebrates.
"See? Everything worked out!"
No.
Now I'm balancing on eggshells.
Every word is measured.
Every emotion censored.
Every text rewritten.
Every apology rehearsed.
Because if I make one mistake
one tiny mistake
I know exactly where the exit door is.
So I swallow everything.
Until it burns.
And when it burns,
I reach for water.
But somehow...
every single time...
I grab gasoline.
I pour it over every inch of myself.
Strike the match.
Watch myself burn.
Again.
Again.
Again.
Because the fire they're causing
still feels warmer
than the cold they leave behind.
So I tell myself,
"This is love."
Then,
"This is enough."
Then,
"This is better than nothing."
Until I almost believe it.
And if you've ever found yourself
crying on the bathroom floor
the kind of crying
where your body shakes
because your soul doesn't know what else to do
then maybe you know.
Maybe you've watched your tears gather
until they looked deep enough
to drown in.
Maybe you've wondered
how one person
could walk away with so much of you
still attached to them.
Maybe you've learned
that sometimes
the hardest funeral to attend
is for someone
who never died.
And maybe...
just maybe...
the cruelest part
isn't that they left.
It's that every morning
you wake up
and your heart
still reaches for the person
who taught it
how to break.