Today, my heart is heavy. It’s not broken the way it used to be; cracked open and bleeding for someone who didn’t notice. No, today it aches in the way a body does after a long fight. Exhausted. Tender. Quietly aware of every bruise.

Maybe it’s the blood cycling through me, maybe it’s the weight of a thousand silent goodbyes; but I feel the grief creeping back in like a tide I can’t hold off. I wanted to pretend I was done with it. But healing doesn’t always respect timelines. Especially not when ghosts still knock at the back of your mind.

I keep thinking of Dean. Of the tattoo. Of how he once made me feel like I was chosen. And now? I don’t know. He feels like a memory I’m trying to unlove. His name has been fading, even his voice slipping through the cracks of time. But then he does something; a whisper, a shadow, a quiet tug at the corners of my memory. Just enough to make me look back. Just enough to make me ache.

And Daniel? He was never the plan. He was the distraction I didn’t know I needed. The soft place to fall when Dean stopped catching me. And now I’m wondering if that softness could turn into something. Or if he, too, is just a temporary comfort dressed as something more.

I want both of them to disappear.
I want both of them to show up.
I want neither.
I want peace.

I want to forget them entirely.
I want to remember every moment, every breath, every lie.
I want to move on.
I want one last chance.

I want silence to blanket me.
I want answers to echo through it.
I want to be left alone in the ache.
I want someone to come find me in it.

I want to stop feeling this.
I want to feel everything.
I want to burn the memory down.
I want to build a home inside of it.

It’s all so confusing.
A carousel of almosts, of maybes, of “just one more time.”
When is enough enough?

I’m tired of performing emotional CPR on connections that keep flatlining.

Today, I didn’t want to speak to anyone. I didn’t want to wonder who might message me, who might come back, or who might still be watching from the sidelines. I didn’t want the noise of other people’s voices in my head. I just wanted mine

So I stayed in my own presence. In my silence. In my books.

I don’t know what tomorrow will bring. I don’t know if Dean will reach out, if Daniel will drift back in. But today, I didn’t beg for either of them. I didn’t chase, I didn’t plead, I didn’t perform.

I simply let myself feel.