you were my reverie

Your name sits unpleasantly on the tip of my tongue

when they ask me if I've got any great stories to tell.

The nights that we sat in your car,

blasting my least favorite songs because you loved them,

I would've told you that your hands

held all the moments that would later be described

as the best story of my life.

The days that I looked forward to like I was a little kid again,

when you sucked away the madness that was my world

24 hours at a time.

Sometimes I thought of you like this:

When we met, I might as well have found $20,000.

Just like money, I gained so many new things with you.

Your eyes bought me daydreams,

your hands bought me confidence,

and your heart bought me butterflies.

Oh, but your soul showed me something

I didn't even know existed.

When I met your soul,

I held hands with unconditional love;

for a little while anyway.

I'd never come into that kind of richness ever in my life,

and I may never again.

But what I didn't realize was that

I wasn't rich in that way people are

that find $20,000.

I still couldn't have gone out

and bought any car I wanted

or any house I wanted.

In no universe would I have been able to

go to the mall

and have not a care in the world

what the price tags were.

But I did have the ability to do things

like tell you all my thoughts

and whims

and dreamer things

without fear of being judged.

You watched the ocean escape my eyes,

and sat with me in silence

until the deepest water

was dried up.

You were more than a chapter in my life,

more than a fleeting time of what the adults

would've called puppy love.

You were the whole book.

Where my name was, your name took residence, too.

You were more than a drive through the lit up city,

just to go home and forget about a week later.

You were an element of my being,

like a part of me that hadn't been attached

until I met your eyes for the first time.

Darling, you were my reverie;

the thoughts that I would get pleasantly lost in

whenever I could.

Now you were my other,

and engraved in my life in a way

that I could not see a future

short of being with you.

But this is where I hit a snag

when they want me to tell my greatest story.

This is where I wonder what to consider you now

versus how I considered you then.

On one of the mornings

that I would normally wake up to your missed call

and stumble to return it,

I did not find any new notifications.

So instead I went downstairs,

to find a new accessory sitting on the

kitchen table.

It was only a small black notebook,

but somehow it sat there darkly,

with a weight that I could feel without

even grasping it with my own hands.

All I could do was stare at it,

actively discouraging my mind from pondering

what might be hiding inside its pages.

I knew that if my wild, free spirited thoughts

were set loose from their cages,

a feeling of terror would wash over me

before I even had a reason to feel such a way.

Finally I forced movement up and down my legs,

walking stiffly to the space on the table it sat.

I reached for it with my shaky fingers,

noting that it was eerily quiet,

as if the universe had silenced itself to be sure

that I would not get distracted from my task at hand.

Resisting the urge to be afraid of what could possibly

envelope itself in a small notebook,

on lined pages,

rather than any other hiding place,

I opened the journal,

setting whatever it was free.

And it sprung from the page,

plunging itself into my eyes,

until I could not believe what I was reading.

You said you were sorry,

you said it wasn't my fault,

you said it hurt you more than it hurt me,

but it would be better this way.

You said it was a long time coming,

you said it was the hardest thing you'd ever done,

you said it was an act of love,

but my heart had never been struck so hard

in all the wrong places.

I threw the black little notebook

across the kitchen,

wishing all its darkness

and the evil words it held

and the new reality it has messily painted for me

would have never encountered me.

It took my $20,000 away.

No, it stole more than that.

It stole you.

And you let it happen.

You wanted it to happen.

And I wedged myself into that moment for months,

knowing that if I let go,

I'd have to move forward with the time

that passed everyday

even without you there.

So now, with all my scars bandaged,

and free of ache,

and with my hands free of being

balled into fists,

I ask myself.

You were a human being, yes.

But also a story,

also a feeling,

also a soul.

But what were we?

A love story to be told for all the hopeless romantics out there,

or a tragedy to be hidden in the depths of my memory?

You were my moments, yes.

But were they moments that should be transformed into shiny stories like they were fairy tales,

or should they be restrained in the shadows where I stored them on the day I found your goodbye letter?

These things, I have found,

do not have a single answer.

But rather, you must ask yourself,

where does your story wish to go?

If it feels tired, let it retire to its room,

with the window closed.

If it does not want you to ask more questions,

leave it alone.

It has lived how it wanted to live,

and seen what it has wanted to see.

But if it should want to escape its threshold

and see the world with the wind,

let it.

If it should want to seep into the cracks

of bruised hearts much like your own,

let it.

Knowing this,

I decided to open my mouth and

let your name escape my mouth for the first time in years.

As I spoke our story,

the room watched me with glittery eyes,

lost in the feelings I released to them

with pretty words

and the language of happy endings.

But when I reached the part of the book

I feared would scare them away,

they only leaned in more,

and seemed to seek comfort

in the downfall of my highest point.

They did not do so in a malicious way,

but because when you share your saddest moments,

people who also had the saddest moment of their life

last week

will automatically feel less alone.

And those who have not met their weakest self yet

will be far from judging you,

if they are dreamers, like you were,

like you are now, just in a different way.

If the spirit in your story,

that was breathed to life

when you decided you could not live without him

because he made you feel something beautiful,

wants to leave its room,

please don't hesitate to unlock the door,

for it may surprise you.

It will not escape its chains only to strangle you all over again,

as long as you are strong enough to tell it not to.

Instead, it will embrace you

in the hug you needed,

and it will tell you that all is okay now.

If you learn anything from this,

let it be that the pain stitched into your story

is not to be feared,

and locked away forever.

And in this light, I have made peace

with the little black notebook,

that now sits on my desk with all the others,

and I have offered it forgiveness for all it inflicted.

If you give it a chance,

it will do better,

and what was once your worst enemy

will be your friend,

and your greatest story.