Despite her words about letting go, melancholy washed over her. Because words are easy and often thrown around with trite intentions.

I ached with loss that I’d never allowed myself to feel. As if I was leaving something important behind. And that something was me.

Leaving yourself behind is the worst loss a person can know.

There was something comforting about believing in things that didn’t exist.

Something inside her opened strong and raw while she played with those two words. I matter.

In the darkness, she listened to the silence. She wallowed in the beautiful nothing it made.

But sometimes, things are better to just hear. Some questions better left unasked. Some words better left unsaid. Because saying them doesn’t make you matter any less.

Couches and tables and beds don’t make a home. Home is where you feel less alone.

Because nothing was sacred. Not in this world. Not in stones. Not in trees. Not in legacies. Certainly not in love.

Carelessness was once something to be owned. They wore it around their necks as they joined the springtime breeze while ducking in and out of the forest believing their fairy tale.

The word goodbye stuck to her tongue. She wasn’t ready to say it. Because goodbye weighed more when forever hung off the end. And she wasn’t sure about forever. She wasn’t sure about anything. Except that, at that moment, she wanted to believe he would always be there. Even if it meant many years down the road. She needed to still have something to hold onto.

Change is coming, she whispered to the bugs bouncing off her window. You can’t escape it.