To my old best friend, I hope you are well.

I remember when we were young and bold in our passion,

running through fields of freedom and picking flowers of love to trade with each other over the fire.

I remember looking into your eyes and seeing us as pirates,

as the princess and her frog,

as the president and vice,

as partners in crime.

It never mattered where our roads would lead us on our journey through life.

As long as we were together, the world would tremble beneath our feet and beat in tandem with our breathing.

Old best friend,

I think of us and what we once were and I have the bravery to take on the world.

Memories surface of what we were and what we could have been and I can’t help but feel as though there is something more waiting for me. For us.

But my confidence is worn, my love.

It is faded and dusty and I am acutely aware of just how old I am without you.

How we had not been too young, not really, but my youth came back to me every time you laughed and promised me a life beyond a town that was not prepared to nurture our bountiful spirits.

And how when you left, my age seeped back into my life and tinted everything gray.

To the one who I once shared half a heart necklace with,

I look you in the eyes and I do not see adventure. Not anymore.

I see a galaxy of memories and moments stuck in time.

A universe filled with pain and laughter and love.

I see a past that I will never be able to forget,

And a future I have no chances of grasping.

I see what once was and what will never be,

A cut-knot in a spool of yarn I had been working on untangling.

For the person I am sure to have spent a future with in a different life,

I hope that you have someone who can see what I once did in your eyes,

And I hope that whatever you see in mine,

it is enough for you to wish the same.

In spite of what the one who I used to share an earbud with on slow lunch periods may think,

I am sorry.

I am sorry for how I treated you in moments of cowardice and I am sorry for the words that would have been better said than not.

I am sorry for the small and the big,

the hurtful and the annoying,

the chapters in our book that were awkward to write and even more so to reread.

I am not and never will be sorry for how our story ended,

But I am sorry for the ugly in between our pages of beauty that would have been better left in the rough drafts.

I know you cannot say the same.

But I am sorry.

To be read by the one who I once proposed to with a cherry-flavored ring pop,

I find myself being so incredibly bored without you.

You were a wildfire,

toxic and deconstruction towards everything in your path.

And now I will have to settle for a garden.

It is not a bad trade. Far from it, really.

But sometimes I’ll look down at the lighter in my hand and have the sudden urge to set everything aflame just to be able to feel some sort of high like I once did with you.

I now take my hits in fits of laughter and talks of dreams.

It’s different for sure. But I’ll manage. I hope that you have a garden of your own and that the ground on which you stand on flourishes with every step you take.

I am learning to see the beauty in the petal of a rose instead of the deconstruction of flames, an I hope you can do the same.

Addressed to the person who held my hand like I was the only thing keeping you from floating away,

I see you in the smallest things now.

My sister and I were shuffling through our playlist and a song came on from the soundtrack of a movie that you were absolutely obsessed with,

the movie that started many a conversation between us,

and I had to ask her to turn it off before my emotions twisted more tangled in my chest.

When I slip on my shoes I think of the hours I spent over my kitchen sink,

scrubbing away ink that you had written on the edges,

quotes that used to make me smile and now make me feel things I can’t describe.

I see your reflection in the acrylic of my keychain,

I hear your voice in the music of the games I play,

and I feel your touch against the fur of my stuffed animals.

You will stay with me till the end of time,

in mind and in heart,

and I can’t find it in me to object.

I wonder where you find me.

In truth, old friend who once held my world in your hands,

You were not as great as I am making you out to be.

You said things that I have declared myself unable to repeat,

told me lies and left wounds in my back that I have had to hide with blood-stained bandages that you would not apply,

and all in all, you were not the angel that I like to write you as.

Sometimes I cannot sleep, left thinking of the things you have called me,

and I am still picking out the strings of manipulation from my clothing that you left behind.

From what I have found on the sweaters of back-handed truths you gave me,

I have a feeling I’ll have to begin sewing my own clothes.

But this is not about you.

This is about me.

And maybe, if I hold off the bad that you brought,

if I choose to ignore the seeds of hate you planted in the garden of my future,

then my healing will be easier.

You were not fair, old best friend.

But I’ve found little that is,

so it would be simply hypocritical to call you out on it.

So to the one who left me with a hundred things that are shoved to the back of my closet for when I have healed,

I wish you the best.

I hope the person who takes the place I once filled makes you happy.

I hope they make you smile with your teeth,

I hope they say things that make you ponder in the middle of the night, smiling,

and I hope that overall, they make you happy.

Do not worry about me, old best friend.

For I will be sitting here in my corner gluing pieces of my life that you shattered back together,

and hopefully, it will be made into something more beautiful than before,

even if you are missing.

I know you have made it clear that you do not care,

but if you do,

I hope this eases your anxiety.

Because above all else,

I choose to find peace within myself.

I’m not sure if I’ll ever be able to forgive you for all you have done and all the ‘sorries’ you left unwritten. I’m more so against the thought of forgetting.

But I forgive myself. And maybe that’s all I need right now.

I hope you can too.