"BUT IF THE STORY'S OVER, WHY AM I STILL WRITING PAGES?.." -TAYLOR SWIFT

I think about you all the time. Despite what I tell people. Or what I tell myself. I tried to write you a letter tonight. I didn't cry. And that is the only progress I've made. I couldn't finish it. I have so much to say but so little desire to say it to you. I no longer feel much emotion about you. I am trying to find that medium between love and hate. Contentment and anger. Somedays I think about reaching out and explaining why I've been gone for so long. Sometimes I fantasize that you'll get it. That you'll embrace me and make me feel welcome. That you'll tell me you love me and apologize for how you make me feel. For hurting me. And then I snap back to reality. One year is never going to be long enough for you to ever understand. You are just now starting to really miss me, I presume. Or maybe you're in the anger part of your grief. Maybe you curse my name daily and tell everyone that you don't care. Maybe you talk shit about me constantly to your husband and my brother, trying to convince everyone that you don't know you fucked up.

Somedays I wonder how you see it. And I am so confused how you could ever not understand. After so many years of me trying to tell you how I was feeling. After so many attempts at communicating with you in every way I could think of. For such an intelligent woman, I feel you lack the most important piece of intelligence, emotional. What happened to you? What are you struggling with? What keeps you from being able to recognize your wrongs or your own anger? What keeps you from being able to accept responsibility or desire change? I wish I knew. I would wrap my arms around you and help you through it. But, you're just a stonewall, cold and tall. Centuries old, impossible to barge through. And I pity you. I feel only pity for you.

I think about you often. I remember good times and think about calling you and telling you a story. About when I was growing up and how I saw you. How you were the center of my universe. The most beautiful woman I'd ever seen. Raw, honest, and emotional. Sensitive and tortured. Smart and driven. Bold and unstoppable. Then I remember that same day or moment and how you kept me small. How you created a co-dependent environment to keep me close. A selfish act made by anyone, but especially a mother. How you made me feel dumb for being any form of different. How you would mock me when I would cry. How you didn't believe me when I told you I was sick. You always thought I was lying. Truth is. I didn't start lying to you until I finally gave up that you'd ever believe me anyway. Why tell the truth and allow myself to be so vulnerable around someone so destructive when I could lie and protect myself from you? Why tell you the truth and show you respect when you lack respect for me? Why be honest with someone who has such little honesty with themselves?

The stories you create in your mind are like your own little wonderland. What an interesting world you live in. Tell me, how high does your alter sit? Do your jokers make less than minimum wage? Does your sun rise in the west? Set in the east? Are the cobblestones in your town created out of people smaller than you? Do they scream with each step? Do you laugh when they do? Do you see only smiles on people's faces where you live? Do they look at you with the envy you so crave? How do you not notice you're walking upside down? Right side up, only sad faces. How nice to walk through your world so carefree. So unaware of the depth of your anger. Unencumbered by the emotions of those around you. What a miserable existence.

But still I sit and think about you. About the day, someday, that I can talk to you again. But mostly I fantasize about the day you'll actually listen. Put your own agenda, wants, and needs aside and open your heart to the possibility that you're not who you believe yourself to be. I know this is a battle I'll never win. A fight I'll die in, if I were to pursue. Still too vulnerable to be surrounded by you. And yet you fill my mind with thoughts of how a mother's love is never ending. And how a daughter's love is everlasting. A connection I could never break with any measurable distance. So I'll continue to sit and think about you. Reminding myself you're not worth destroying the relationship I've created within myself. That your love is exhausting and one-sided. That you'll seep back into my life and entangle yourself around my heart, squeezing it to death.

I've gathered the pieces of myself that you broke. A few holes from when you swallowed the smaller pieces with the hope I'd never fully heal. Those holes are what make me stronger than I've ever been. Reminders that perfection, power, money, and greed create no life of happiness. But, only a life of misery. But I ask that on the day you find yourself, you come find me. And bring me those pieces of me you stole. And I'll fill my holes back with the glue of your love and embrace the idea of you and I. But until then, I sit and think about you. And know in my heart, my holey heart, that you still hold those pieces of me. And that they haunt you daily. Oh, how I hope you find your way. Back to when you were the center of my universe.

"There's still a thread that runs from your body to mine. And you can't break what you don't see, an invisible line. If I follow it down would we just be alright? But it could take me all your life to learn to love. How I thought I could love someone. I haven't even begun. If it's all up to us we might as well give up.." -Forgiveness by Paramore