You’re not my other half. You’re not the missing piece of my chipped bones.
And you’re not the wish I make when I see the first star shining in the night sky, and you’re sure as hell not the reason that my heart keeps beating. I don’t need your name to fall off my tongue for my words to sound sweet. The truth is, I no longer even picture your espresso-colored eyes when I walk into my favorite coffee shop. You’re not my missing piece.
I don’t need you to help me realize that my lungs are still expanding and my veins are still pumping blood.
I sure as hell don’t need you in bed next to me to feel whole. And don’t need your “good morning” texts to know that I’m on your mind when you wake up or for you to blow up your phone all day just to keep busy. Maybe you can’t get me off your mind, but I promise that I can make it through the day without you crossing mine. I’m moving on without you, and I’ve fallen in love with the comfort of my own solitude.
You’re not my missing piece, so I don’t have to rely on you to feel complete.
I don’t need to hear your voice when I’m lying awake at 3 am I don’t need to feel your fingertips on my skin when I’m all alone. The electricity I felt with you excited me, but now I’m certain that if you touched me, you’d just short-circuit.
Learning to live without you hasn’t been easy, but it’s finally my reality. And while I used to rely so heavily on you to give my life meaning, I learned that it’s impossible for anyone to make you whole when you never missed any pieces to begin with.
And yes, maybe you convinced me that I’m nothing without you, but now, I’m still breathing without you.
Here I am waking up each morning, even though your side of the bed is cold. Your touch no longer lingers on my skin, but I still make it through each day feeling alive.
So while you’re in bed with her, I’ll be in bed alone, and that’s OK.
My lungs will keep me breathing, and my solitude will warm me through the night. Every morning, I’ll wake up with a full heart and this time, I’ll be my own home. I’ll be enough on my own because I was always whole without you.
Featured Photo by Anthony Tran on Unsplash.
