The worst part of losing you was feeling empty from the void that you once occupied - through the constant text messages, dates, company spent. The spaces between my fingers feel too large, the nook my my neck feels too cold, my body itself feels incomplete.
The worst part of losing you was trying to pass time. No longer did my days start with "Good morning, beautiful", and end with "Good night, love". Minutes feel like hours. Hours of sleeplessness filled with thoughts of you consume me every night, until exhaustion took pity on me, and consumed me.
The worst part of losing you was being without your love. I would catch you looking at me like I was the most wonderful person in the room. The pride you took in me fed my confidence - you truly believed that I could do anything if I put my mind to it. You had so much hope in me. I felt like I could conquer the world. Though as those little compliments faded along with the hope that you had for us, my self-esteem diminished. I never knew how insecure I was before I had met you - perhaps I never was, but the mind adapts and so does the heart. I was shielded by the negativities around me by your love - and once that was lost, so was my comfort. I notice it now. The occasional red bumps on my face, the fat that hangs around my stomach, how large my pores really are, the fly-aways in my hair. Is that why you lost hope in me?
As I sit here clutching the remains of my heart with my fist, I know what the worst part of losing you is:
The worst part of losing you was losing me. I had lost myself in the process of finding out every single detail about you over the last three years. I delved into the deepest pits of your existence to sew back the broken pieces and surface the ones that were meant to be rejoiced but were hidden under the insecurities of your own. Yet through every push, every bead of sweat, and ever tear I shed, I left a part of me with you - until I no longer had anything left of myself to give.
I lost myself when I lost you. I can see parts of her in you. She lives in the thread that was used to sew your heart back together.
I see her in your determination - I left her with you the day you cried because you were almost put on probation after a series of poor choices in your first semester.
I see her in your happiness - I left her with you every time you let sadness consume you because you were homesick.
I see her in your confidence - I left her with you when I did countless mock-interviews with you before you tried out for your first part-time job.
I see her in your love - I left her with you when I proved to you that true love does exist.
If losing myself meant that you could find yourself underneath the cloud of insecurities you lived under before meeting me, then I hope that the parts that I left with you cling to the fibres of your being, and flow through your veins like an elixir.
Island.
Photo by Jon Ottosson
