i slept on the side by the window. i never told you, but i could never quite fall asleep with the light filtering through the blinds. i should really get some blackout curtains, you said. i didn’t mind because you would always wake up in the middle of the night and ask if we could talk. you shared your dreams with me in sleepy whispers, committing them to my memory. what does it mean? you would ask. and back and forth, we’d make up stories and share memories. we would reach deep into the recesses of our minds and try to connect the dots. sometimes the conversations were silly. sometimes they were painful. fingers in my hair, you always drifted off first. by morning, you didn’t remember.

i sleep better now, but i still wake up often. sometimes alone, sometimes not. but it’s always me who has the dreams. hey, i call softly into the dark. but he isn’t as tortured as you were. he breathes evenly. he’s content.

somehow, this makes me miss you more than ever.

i fell in love the way you fall asleep.

slowly, then all at once.

i never thought that i'd survive you
but i will be free

goodbye
i don't wanna
feel the need
to hear your voice

goodbye
i don't wanna
feel the need
to see your face

i can't live with
all these things i would say
i can't live with
all these things that i say

you let me try
knowing there was nothing i could do
to change you

you could have warned me
knowing there was nothing i could do
to change you

you never really loved me
never really, never really loved me
loved me like they did

you could have told me
goodbye

she is bright lights and cityscapes
and white lies and cavalcades
and she'll take all you ever have
but i'm gonna love you
you say maybe it'll last this time
but i'm gonna love you
you never have to ask
i'm gonna love you
til you start looking back
i'm gonna love you
so right
i wouldn't need a second chance

she'll take all you ever have
but i'm gonna love you

maybe we got lost in translation

you called me up again just to break me like a promise
so casually cruel in the name of being honest

you said it in a simple way

4am, the second day

how strange that i don't know you at all

stumbled through the long goodbye

one last kiss, then catch your flight

right when i was just about to fall

i told myself don't get attached

but in my mind i play it back

spinning faster than the plane that took you

tonight even as i sit quietly at home with a broken heart

i am so immensely grateful for where my life is today. for the chance to look back and remember what i've been through and know that it is my gift, that i heal.

here i go again
i promised myself i wouldn't think of you today
it's been seven months and counting
you've moved on
i still feel exactly the same

it's just that everywhere i go
all the buildings know your name
like photographs and memories of love
steel and granite reminders
the city calls your name and i can't move on

last night i woke up from a dream. in it, i was doing something mundane when you suddenly showed up, quietly and unhurried like it was a place where you belonged. our exchange was brief, but i was left deeply affected.

afterwards, i woke up in tears. it was odd, because it's not as if i've never cried in dreams before. but the line between reality and dream was so blurred this time that after i woke up, i continued to cry. as i slowly came to, everything started to become clear--my sense of time, of orientation, of reality. it calmed me at first, but then scared me, realizing that you still have such a hold on me, in a way that even traverses consciousness.

in the quiet early dawn, i think of some of my favorite conversations with you. i remember how long it's been since i've heard your voice. suddenly the thought of no longer knowing you is so unbearable that part of me wants to return to sleep just to be in a place where we could speak again, even in a manner as cursory as it was in my dream. i just want it to be ordinary again, between you and i.

as the years go by, i realize more and more that the cost of loving you was far too high. and it is going to take a very, very long time for it to be repaid.

you would think that if you prepare yourself for the end; if you come to expect it, that your heart would be safe. that nothing could come as a shock.

but the pain is real.

day 22

dear ___________,

everything, everyone, every shred of rational thought in my head tells me not to love you. but i don't, honestly, know how to stop.

you're afraid you're not good enough, that you've messed up too badly, that you have something to hide. and you steal happiness from others to prove that you're exactly who they think you are. the only thing i can say in response is… you're absolutely right. you don't deserve their love. you don't deserve their forgiveness.

but this is about me. i am flawed in a way that stems from the same fact that i don't love myself. except that while you're reckless with others' hearts, i'm reckless with my own. and in my whole life, i have never stopped loving someone because of the things they have done. i love you not because of who you are, but because of who i am.

i didn't feel this way at first. i didn't think i could. what you did, it gave me reason to manage my expectations from the very beginning. i set up walls, boundaries--and i told everyone they were uncrossable. you did so many things to hurt me, to shock me, to test my limits. i was unfazed because i kept my heart in a tightly locked box.

or so i thought. the problem is, you were also kind. selfless and gentle. i opened myself up to you and you did the same. except while it's a daily occurrence for me, i knew how much it meant to you. you were sincerely wonderful, and the past began to feel incredibly distant. i began to wonder if you might love me after all, even though i had convinced myself that we were impossible.

i don't know when it happened, but one day something from your past came up and i came to the sudden realization that i did care. i cared about the awful things you did. something that hadn't bothered me previously now hurt me deeply and i couldn't understand why. i suppose all those things had been waiting at the door for the moment i let my guard down.

i believe that you love me, in the way that you know how. you say you want a second chance, but i don't think you really know what that means. i guess it doesn't matter because you know i'll give it to you. and a third and a fourth and many more, if you need it. not because i want to. but because i've given you my heart and i don't know how to get it back.

something is seriously wrong with me.

There were more unrequited crushes throughout my 20s and (hard to admit it) even into my 30s. The guy with a girlfriend, the work-a-holic, the angry poet. I was the best unrequited lover out there. I had become a pro at it. I told myself that love is painful and I must endure that pain. Even if that meant never betraying my true feelings, always keeping them to myself, loving cautiously from afar, keeping careful records in private places, or denying myself. Although I had real boyfriends, from time to time, the unrequited ones were better. They were perfect in my mind. They never hurt me, I only hurt myself and I liked it better that way.

When I fell into my final unrequited love affair, it felt like a dirty secret. I had always been able to compartmentalize my amorous inclinations, but things were different this time. I was way over writing about him in my journal or thinking about him only at bed time. I wanted him to, gasp, love me back. That’s when I cut off contact with him. He wanted to be friends, but I declined. I don’t need that kind of friend.

I realized that unrequited love was my favorite form of self-punishment, one that I had grown familiar with. When I finally felt I deserved to love and be loved in return, the childish habit had lost its dramatic cache. While it’s masochistic to long for something I think I’ll never have, it’s awfully safe. It’s scary to put myself in a situation where real love is possible with someone and in turn, real heartbreak, but I’ve decided the risk is worth it for the chance to let him love me back.

the sparkling brilliance of new york city, the woodsy, misty air of seattle, the pulsing electricity of hong kong... they will have just one thing in common, and that is that you don't, you won't, exist in those worlds.

i don't see you anymore. i don't know where you are or what you are doing. but i do know that memories of you remain in the people and places around me. and as long as that's true, the imprint of you will stay with me.

this year i'm going to say goodbye to southern california and home as i know it, for some time. i don't know when. i don't know where i'm going. but i need a place to call mine that you haven't touched. streets and houses and friends and lovers that bear no inkling of your presence.

you always believed in me, always told me that staying here wouldn't be enough for me, that i would do bigger and better things. you'll likely never know that you are the reason i had to.

i want to wish you well
i didn't watch you go
because i suppose i don't know how
i will remember you
not the way you left but how you lived
and what you knew

i want to feel your hands
i want to feel your fire burning
right from where i stand

i'll find my way
because you showed me how

i want to know it's you
when i hear your voice inside my head
inside my room
i want to touch the sky
i want to see the stars twinkle
like they were your eyes

i want to smell your scent
i want to breathe the air i did
before you left

i want to wish you well
the only reason my heart beats
is because you showed it how

katie herzig.

sometimes i wonder. can you be truly happy if you don't get something you want? i don't mean that new sweater or latest apple gadget, or even that job you've slaved for. i mean something that could complete you, that could make you never want anything again. if that thing slipped away from you forever, could you be whole? content? happy?

i lost something really precious to me this year. for years past i knew the day would come but i hadn't really imagined how i'd continue afterwards. they don't really show you that part in movies, do they? and it seemed like no matter what wonderful things came into my life (and they absolutely did), i could only be 99% happy. as in, if someone were to ask me if i was happy, i'd feel like a cheater if i said 'yes.'

then at some point recently it came to me that i had been viewing happiness as a flat line. as if it were something achievable, that i could reach if i could just have this or that, if i could fix every conflict i had with everyone, if i could be beautiful and smart and kind. and once i reach it, i'll just cruise along in my happy state and nothing will ever break my heart again. but that will never happen. ever. i don't think it has for anyone in history.

losing this part of my life left a huge hole in my heart. i'd never really considered how it would feel to never be able to go back to the way it was. some nights i just lie there feeling empty. sometimes i cry. a lot.

but... then something incredible happens. the sun comes up, and it's usually a beautiful southern california day. i wake up. last night's tears are gone, and instead i feel peace. maybe even a little hope.

it all comes in waves. the good and bad, happy and sad, days and nights, and if this hole is ever filled there might be another one somewhere else. the only thing to do is to ride it out and hope for a better tomorrow.

no one in the history of my life has ever been more wrong for me
and no one has been able to make me forget like you can

i'm happy. maybe stressed, busy, and currently a mess too. but deeply grateful for my lot in life.

i'm lucky to do what i love. i'm lucky to be loved by good people. i'm lucky to have loved you, and lucky now to be able to let you go.

i used to be terrified of a future without you simply because i didn't know what was ahead. but i can do anything now. live anywhere. love anyone. and it's liberating rather than terrifying.

you won't be the last one i'll ever love.