@Michael

Somewhere in between the lines of “I love you” and “I hate you,” your name tickles my tongue.

I could never hate you, but I hate what you’ve done to me. I hate that no matter what I do or who I’m with, I never feel like myself anymore. I’m always haunted by the ghosts of “what could have been,” and they haunt me every time I try to sleep. I never feel like myself because I was myself only when I was with you, and now that you’re away, I am nothing but a shell of what I never wanted to be.

Someday, maybe, I’ll find my “self worth,” or whatever they call it, but that day feels so distant from now. I like to think that I meant the world to you, too–as much as you meant to me, but I know I was never your world, I was never your “home,” and every moment of every day, I can’t help but wonder if you really did love me or just my obsessive, annoying, bleak presence.

My name was never much to anyone, and maybe yours wasn’t either, but as much as I hate to admit it sometimes, your name still means and will always be the universe to me, and I can't change that. I gave you everything that I have only dreamed of someone giving me; I did everything for you, hoping that you would one day do the same for me. Everything I have ever loved I have lost, and it makes me sad and not want to love anything anymore, but with you everything is different. When it comes to you, I admit I still have an endless love for you, an endless love for someone who I don’t even know if they loved me at all. I love you more than I have ever loved anything or anyone. But, darling, I must warn you that I am not the same girl that you knew. Maybe this numbness is only here when you’re away, but I can’t do anything anymore. I can’t even get myself to not cry almost every time I get behind the wheel. I don’t love the things that I used to anymore. I don’t even love sleeping anymore. I can’t- because I can only sleep when I’m next to you.

Now, I know that I’m not worth too much, but I know that I’m at least worth more than to be someone’s last resort shot at love, so tell me, darling, did you ever love me at all‽ Have you ever cried over me like I have over you‽ Do you ever think of me? What do you think of me? I’m exhausted, and I’m sick of looking for things to kill me.

I have always wanted to die- to see something greater than this life, and loving you gave me just that. It showed me that maybe there is a light at the end of the tunnel; it showed me that during my brief and shitty existence, there is something beautiful that I can have while I am here. And even through it all- through all of the madness and yelling and our stoned or sober nights- there was a place that I could call home.

Even if you never loved me then, I got to at least be with the one I love. Even if you never loved me, I got to sleep next to the person who kept me alive.

Even if you never loved me, something in me tells me that you can now.

I hate being away from you. All I want is to be happy with you; I want to smile again, I want to laugh like how I did a year ago. I want to start over and to get to know you again; I want to trust and believe in you again. You know you are worth more than you feel like you are worth, and I know this because you love yourself.

You are worth more than life to me. You, Michael John Neveaux Jr., are more beautiful and more radiant than all of the stars in the sky, even the ones we can’t fathom. We’re miles and miles away from each other, and so I’m miles and miles away from my heart, but somehow it’s still beating, and somehow I’m still here.

While you had my death at your hands,

You also had my life there, too.