Take me back to the night we met, and this is what I would tell you.

I realize this reflection of who you were is identical to the one that stands before me, and yet entirely different. Outwardly, you are the same person I always knew. You are still the person I fell in love with, but you’re different on the inside. If I could go back to the night we met, I would make sure you knew every imperfection I saw from the beginning, if not just to fix them sooner.

We’ve traveled a long time now together, love, and I am glad I got the chance to know you. You taught me a childish way to look at life, and showed me that it’s okay to blow off some tasks to have a little fun. But your way of living a daydream soon turned into my personal nightmare. Without even realizing it, I fell into the belief that this living on happy moment to happy moment with nothing in between was all that there was to life.

While I was chasing happiness, I didn’t even realize that I left it in my tracks. I wasn’t running towards anything, but rather further into the depths of nothingness.

I can’t say I blame you entirely–you were only doing what you knew: teaching me to run. We ran from everything: problems, stress, anxieties. And in turn, we wound right up on their doorsteps. Except, when I looked to my side, you were no longer there; rather it was me, standing alone in the cold. After dozens of times of knocking on doors with no one home to answer and you not being there alongside me, you would’ve thought I would realize sooner that you were my doom. And yet I kept coming back to you.

You were all I knew and therefore, I could convince myself of anything.

“You’re all I need.” “No one else understands but you.” The more I look at it, I’m not sure if this was even me thinking these things or you feeding them to me like the fiend you were. You are.

If I could go back to the night we met, I wouldn’t allow myself to be captured by your carefree grasp. I know I learned everything from you, and that from pain comes glory, but I don’t know if it was ever worth it.

You twisted my figure until the reflection I saw was no longer myself but rather an empty shell of sadness and sorrow. A shell of a person who used to be, but just like those doors we ran knocking to, was no longer home.

I couldn’t be found, lost in your deception and your terrors.

But, after years of lies and tears and ever-fading happiness, I was able to find bits and pieces of the girl I left behind. I picked her back up, brought her home with me, and tried to put her back to something recognizable. It was agonizing, especially when I realized that she could never fit like she used to. She could never be who she once was.

Ruined. She was ruined. This is what I told myself. And yet I continued to build her back, piece by piece. If I couldn’t make her what she used to be, I would make her better. And in the process of making a person who was beautiful despite imperfections, you realized that you didn’t want this new girl. You didn’t want to be seen with her.

So just like you did with me, you ran.

But I’m not running anymore.

I will face this mirror proudly. Proud of what I built and who I made. I did not build her to please you. She’s for me. Just like she should’ve been all along; this person is for me alone.

So, maybe I don’t regret meeting you for you made this incredible person I see. Maybe I just regret running after you for so long.

Take me back to the night we met, and these are the things I would tell you. These are the things I would tell the runner. These are the things I would tell the mirror.