[14] - monday's child.

「 empty notebooks. 」

all too well (ten minute version), ᴛᴀʏʟᴏʀ ꜱᴡɪꜰᴛ, 08.35

 i'm so tired of pretending it doesn't hurt because it really does. i still listen to every song i listened to when we were in love because they've always been my favourites.

 i knew you better than anyone, yet you were such a shrouded enigma. i was your closest friend, yet you trusted me like a stranger. so much was not enough. we, ourselves, were contradicts. everything about us was.

 do you remember the movies we used to watch? there was a line in a poem you once wrote for me, 'let us find our parallels in the art we love.'

 i remember how we found ourselves in 90's japanese animation, centuries-old novels, and songs on shared playlists. i felt that we were one of the greatest loves of all time, ultimately forgetting that those romances were already over.

 now, i don't know if the boy who wanted to be with me as the wind rises was real.

 i hate myself for being overconfident that we'd have worked out. do you remember how i said, "if we burn out in two years, it'd have been the best two years of my life"? two years was the supposed minimum for us, yet we barely lasted two months.

 i hate how i still miss you some nights and wonder about what might've been. you said you never dreamed, but i wonder if the reason why i see you in my sleep is because you think too much about me, or if it's because i think too much about you more than i'd like to admit.

 i hate the way my neck cranes to gaze longer at the line of cream uniqlo sweatshirts when i'm out browsing clothes, because i know one of them is in your closet; the same oversized sleeves that warmed my heart and easily-cold skin. my lips used to curve into a loving smile as i buried myself in your scent and i always never wanted to return it to you.

 i hate how i still turn around when i catch a whiff of your familiar scent in a passing breeze. did i ever mention it was my favourite scent in the world? i never remembered what it was called, but i would recognise your cologne in a sea of strangers.

 i hate how i freeze when i hear something close to your name. you once told me there were two meanings to it; varying by spelling. one meant 'my little love', and the other was 'fiery one'. i could see your little crooked grin through my phone screen as you told me, "i like to think there's a secret meaning to it: 'my little love is a fiery one' — that being you." i carried that title with utmost pride.

 i used to love the way the three syllables of your name rolled off my tongue, and i'd give you either the sweetest or the most ridiculous nicknames. now i can't even stand reading or saying it.

 i have given too much. i have loved too much, and i have loved too young.

 i've been drowning myself in plans and work and dreams i don't even know if i can reach. i'm rewriting the future i had wanted to spend with you; now i'm filling the empty spaces of what we wanted to be with ivy-drenched columns and lonely new york nights.

 i was never one for prose, but lately i have been unable to turn my pain into poetry. how can i, when i've lost the one who fit my poems like a perfect rhyme?

 there's nothing but a gaping hole in the middle of my heart. the vacuous mass that once was you is snapping the stitches holding me together, the embroideries of my being that you helped me repair. i am falling into the nothingness of myself.

 you, who gifted me my first album and my first love — thank you for giving me music and showing me what sadness was. but now i must find someone who will show me what happiness is. that someone is myself; i've long needed to be her again, but i'm still trying to find her.

 this is the first thirteenth since you lost me. the months will drag on, i'll turn fifteen without your 3am messages; my september love letters will fade into dried ink and crumpled paper; and there will be an empty chair at every party i host or attend.

 you kept me a secret, but i kept you as an oath — this my version of a ten minute song we had once analysed together. just between us, do you remember it, all too well?