How many times did you ask me to let go? And how many times did I tell you that I already did — that I was only reminiscing at three in the morning because somehow, it is always you who makes me remember everything again. It is always in your last sentences. “Let me go.” “We’re only hurting each other.” “But please know this, you are still my favorite memory.” That’s the cruelest part of all of this. Even when you villainize me in the paper of your pages, I don’t care how your words try to rewrite me into someone terrible, because I know what I did. I know I left. I left because everyone told me to, including you. And I am sorry for that. But nobody ever taught me how to leave mentally. I once left you physically, yes, but my mind never found the door, and neither did my heart. Tell me, how was I supposed to move on from something that still lives inside me? How was I supposed to stop loving someone when there was never an exit built within me to begin with? You, though — you are good at it. Maybe you already moved on. Maybe you haven’t. But you wear distance so beautifully that sometimes I cannot tell the difference anymore. Blame me, hon, for everything happening to you right now if it helps you sleep at night. Turn me into the villain if it makes your grief easier to carry. I will take it, the same way I took every version of you I was given. But you cannot tell me to stop remembering you. Because even if I knew how, I still would not.