Each morning that I wake up,
I’m reminded of how cruel my reality has become
because you are no longer in it.
My dreams are much kinder to my fragile state,
because there, I can still see you.
I can still touch, hear, and talk to you.
My mind creates a thousand different scenarios
where you understand why I left you
that early spring day.
I pretend that you turn around and say you miss me too,
and that you forgive me for the awful things I said.
We make up over and over
and go about our lives as if we never parted ways.
Let me tell you all the things that I wish I said
so I can stop torturing myself daily
with the endless possibilities of a past
where I told you how I felt.
Yet, those fantasies are not real,
and the prospect of reconciliation is a faint fever dream
that I wake from like a nightmare on repeat,
as I regret what I never said.

Editor: Erynn Crittenden