Compendium of Loss

I still remember how it felt to cry in the space between the hospital wing and the lifts, how dingy the walls were, how it felt when my whole world fell apart because of one piece of bone.

The day that leaving became more than just a word, I wanted to shout- both because I couldn't leave the space, and because I couldn't leave her. She was going to leave more than once, and she never did, then, but now she's gone.

I cut off contact because it was easier than watching my heart break time and time again, with each realisation. I thought that would make it stop. I didn't realise how wrong I was.

I didn't think you'd get on that bus. I thought you loved me. You said you loved me.

Her car drove away, and we've barely heard from her since.

I know you think I owe you an explanation, but I don't. I never did. I was in love with you long before you realised, and you broke my heart a thousand times before that day. Sometimes, enough is enough.

I used to stand in-between my entire world, can you see me, smiling?

My gut impulse will always be to run, and I'm wearing my heavy Docs and trying to keep my feet firmly planted on the floor, but in all honestly, it's only getting harder.

I know we have tangled roots, but that doesn't make it any easier when I haven't seen you in months, and when our only real conversation was almost an argument.

We have history. I wish we had more. I wish we had less. I wish you weren't you and I wish I wasn't me, I wish things had been different.

We were best friends, once.

I still feel so guilty over the way I treated you. I don't regret what happened, because I live a life without regrets, but guilt is a separate entity.

Love leaves fingerprints, and some of yours are fragile, but others are grubby and I can't seem to wipe them away.

Would you be proud of me?

The silhouette in the window was all that I needed to know the truth, that she was gone. We spent the summer clearing her flat.

Missing you is a funny thing, because I still can't say I really like or liked you- and yet, I miss you.

We used to go camping, and I haven't been for years, and I want to, but also I want something that camping itself will never give me.

There is still a pair of wings hung in my room, and I'm not sure what their message is, whether they're reminding me to try to fly, or how it feels to fall.

I like to think you'd recognise me.

They never contacted us, and I don't really care because so much has changed; what I care about is that it changed at all.

I don't play sport, but I have been in so many teams. 'Team' isn't always a noun. Sometimes it's an adjective. Sometimes it's a verb. Sometimes it's a feeling.

You were my first love.

Sometimes I can still catch hold of feelings from years ago; I want to wear them, bask in their familiarity, their bittersweet symphony.

I listened to Kodaline and walked along the beach at dusk; the second time, I walked along in the morning, and the sun was bright. Your absence can't be measured by time or words or miles, but I feel it, I feel it, I feel it.

There are no words for this.

I was a swimmer, once. Have I told you that already?

Please just save me from this darkness.

I am made up of loss, stitched together by memories.