I don’t know how to say goodbye, and I thought I’d be better at it for having so much advanced warning. We knew, we’re smarter than that, and there’s only so much fighting before it starts to kill all of us, not just you. But I can’t talk about you without crying, and I get very tired of it. Three months should make the tears go away, I think. It should make the words come back.
I’m going to throw them at you instead. Maybe some will come out this time.
And I miss you. That will never change.

In the hardest part of my life, I couldn’t handle it. I released it all on you, the details, the feverish ramblings and self-snapshots of a trying time. I unleashed all my horror, because I couldn’t at the time, it all built up as I sorted through a destroyed house that used to be a promise of a better life for my family, broken hope painted into the walls and unfinished windowsills, the way we all let ourselves fall apart and I faced it, alone, with no phones and no internet and barely working lighting fixtures. I told you things I think I’ve forgotten by now… but I remember the feeling of it.
I remember you telling me to stop. It was too much for you.
Well it was too much for everyone, I couldn’t tell a soul, they all hushed me in fear of their own hearts breaking, but mine stayed broken.

She tells me you saved it, the whole conversation, and named it simply “sad.”
I don’t know what to think about that, and I can’t ask you.

The day we sat at our desks and you took a phone call, but it was quiet and short and serious. You didn’t look at me, already breaking down. “He killed himself!” All I could do was hold you as you fell apart, hoping my disintegration next to yours would keep us both salvageable.

You found me in the closet once, hiding in the dark, trembling with anxiety. You shut the door, because I asked you to. You trusted me to figure out what I needed. You supported me when I dropped classes, quit jobs, tried to find a path I was happy to take. You helped me move out, you let me move on when I needed to go. We buried our romance beneath the branches of a lifelong friendship, nourished the roots with our understanding that being soul mates is a lot more than fighting about dinner or sex.

I didn’t worry about you as much as I should, but I’ve always been selfish.

You said I threw chicken at you.
For the record, I don’t think I did that.

I miss your hugs. You were good at expressing that you cared with a hug, even if there wasn’t a good way to do it in words.

I looked at the city lights and felt your ash grit under my fingernails.
And I miss you. That will never change.