You used to own my heart. 

You had no idea the effect you had on me. 

A single glimpse of you would steal all oxygen from my lungs and prevented me from breathing properly until after you were out of view. 

My stomach did backflips and my heart was consumed by an unceasing flame. 

You used to own my heart.

I would lie awake at night thinking of you and desperately wished you were thinking of me the way I was of you.

I would stare at the night sky and wonder if we happened to be looking at the same star. 

I was positive that we were meant to be. So positive that we were soulmates, two pieces of the same heart. 

The Aaron to my Juliette.

The Maxon to my America.

The Han to my Leia. 

The Peeta to my Katniss. 

Now I know that isn’t true. 

You used to own my heart. 

We were too similar. That was our downfall. 

Two shoes, but both only for left feet. 

We were two dandelion seeds adrift in the wind. We just happened to bump into each other in the air before going our separate ways. 

You had me tied into a knot, and you didn’t so much as glance at me anymore. 

Whenever I tried to talk to you, I would fumble over my words, fumble over each syllable, fumble over every letter. 

You used to own my heart.

I was so obsessed with the thought of what we could be that I completely forgot about myself. 

You had complete control of my heart—locked it away in a cage and kept the key until you seemed to misplace it. 

I pushed you away and regretted it for years, until I realized that I didn’t need you anymore. 

You don’t own my heart anymore. 

Even though you lost the key, I found a way to get out of the cage—I pulled the bars apart.

I let my flame for you slowly burn out even though a glimpse of you in the hallway will cause a little spark. Luckily for me, that spark hasn’t caught. 

I let our time together become happy memories to stroll through from time to time. 

Those days lost in the pages of a yearbook. 

Our days together bleed and seem a bit fuzzy, as though it happened decades ago rather than a few years. 

I let my desperate love for you fade with time, and I’m happy to say that I don’t need you anymore. Finally, after years of needing validation from you—and only you—I don’t need your opinion to be happy with myself. 

I let my love fade just like the ancient, folded, piece of notebook paper I have tucked away in the bottom drawer of my dresser. 

The smallest fraction of my heart belongs to you—the first boy I had ever truly loved—but my entire heart doesn’t belong to you anymore. 

Each day the heart-wrenching, daydreaming, butterflies-in-the-stomach love grows smaller. 

I’ll always love you in some way, just not how I used to. 

This is my goodbye to what we had. 

You will always have a piece of my heart.

-Brynn