How to Forget a Love That Never Was

You don’t.

You tell yourself you will—that time will sand down the edges of their memory until it’s smooth enough to hold without bleeding. You throw out the concert stubs, delete their number, laugh a little too loudly when friends say, *"You’re better off."*

But then winter comes.

And suddenly, you’re 2 a.m. and a half-empty bottle of wine, staring at a blurry photo from a party where their arm *almost* brushed yours. You’re the scent of rain on pavement, sharp and familiar, because they once mentioned loving storms. You’re the hollow click of your phone lighting up with *anyone’s* name but theirs.

The cruelest part? There’s nothing to mourn. No breakup, no betrayal—just the phantom weight of a hand that never held yours, lips that never quite met your skin. You grieve a fever dream: the way their voice dropped when tired, the way they’d tilt their head listening to music, the way the universe *lied* when it made you feel like destiny was stitching your souls together with invisible thread.

People call it *unrequited love* like it’s a single-season affliction. But you know the truth: it’s learning to live with a ghost that was never alive to begin with.

So you don’t forget.

You just learn to stop saying their name out loud.

### **Key Elements:**
- **Raw, second-person intimacy** (makes the pain universal yet piercingly personal)
- **Lyrical paradoxes** (*"grieving a fever dream," "phantom weight of a hand that never held yours"*)
- **Bitter wisdom** (acknowledges this isn’t something you "get over")

### **Possible Variations:**
1. **Add a twist** – Reveal the loved one *did* feel the same but never spoke (e.g., *"Years later, you’ll find their journal. The entry dated that rainy April night: *‘I should have kissed her.’"*)
2. **Symbolic motif** – Thread the story with a repeated element (e.g., a song they both hated, now forever bittersweet).
3. **Cold ending** – *"Eventually, you’ll love someone new. They’ll taste like honey, not thunderstorms. You’ll hate yourself for being relieved."*