“This morning as I lay in bed, I thought about how silent it was. It suddenly reminded me of how things used to be. What my favorite part of being with you was. What I haven’t felt in a while as I have let this relationship warp and decay. I miss the time standing still, when we would lie together and time would literally feel like it stopped. I could feel the gears in the clock slowing and then just ceasing movement. Paused time. I should have sat down a long time ago and wrote my thoughts out better. From the first day I met you I felt we were a team. We could do anything. Build anything. Make anything. Create anything. Whatever our whimsy dictated. I would give anything to get back to that feeling. We were a respite from the rest of the world. That wasn’t fake, imagined, or manipulated. Please don’t erase those times from your memory.”

Post break-up. Excerpt from a 12-page letter he wrote when I stopped all communication (numbers, email, social media all blocked; found letter in my mailbox with no postage)