#1: I think about you often, and I sometimes wonder how I would be doing if I kept you at my side. I’m grateful for all you have done for me—genuinely, I am, but the worst crimes committed against me find themselves on your bloodied hands.  You’ve left me breathless from laughter, and you’ve asphyxiated me with your toxicity; it’s just nice to be able to breathe again. 

What goes around comes around, and it’s time you learned that lesson. 

#2: If I could switch lives with anyone, it would be you. I wish I had everything you do which is why I give you all I have. You know everything you’ll never know.

If only, if only, if only.

#3: I miss you. I miss you more than I can articulate, and I don’t know how I lost you. How did a pearl revert back to coal? How did our air mattress relationship deflate? Rollerblades. Magnolias. Helium balloons. Me and you. You can’t hold hands in the ocean, but how am I supposed to pull you on to the shore when I’m dry, and you’re drowning? Come back to me. Swim back to me. Don’t make me dive back in.

Don’t let history accompany my memories like dust on my maroon-knit hoodie.

#4: Sorry won’t cut it, but here I am holding a delicate daisy of defense. You took it. You cultivated it. You watched it bloom in our new garden of fertilized memories, drawing strength from broken glass, tears of joy, and burnt energy.

A teapot can’t shatter if it’s hidden somewhere safe.

#5: We aren’t. We just aren’t.

One letter makes me think of you.

#6: Thank you for changing. Thank you for changing your opinion of me. I wouldn’t be able to see all of your beauty even with a jeweler’s loupe.

Please, please, please don’t let it grow. 

#7: Three would’ve been better, but four makes you a humble memory. Hours end. Words end. You end. 

The end.

#8: I can’t make you feel all my love, and my missing is based on lies and falsehoods. We know where we should be, but where we are is tearing us apart. I’ll never forgive you for making me love you so much. I’ll never forgive you for parentheses. I want you close again, but we are barely farther away. Do you care too? 

My love for you burns like a flame.

#9: Something’s different, and it’s time’s fault as much as it is our own. Bathtubs. Growth. Slides. Snow. White with red polka dots. 

You can take the wheel.

#10: It hurt, and I almost didn’t say it.

Blue was almost blank.

#11: You’re my angel. You’re my seatbelt. You’re my regular. 

Pick me up sooner.

#12: Keep away from my name; I know you will. I know you know; you don’t know I know. Towers fall. Am I weak or strong?

I know what you are.