I hate you because you taught me what love was, you didn’t just didn’t teach me how to be loved back.

I hate you because you said I love you but not before you knew what it actually meant to love someone because you were giving away love like it was something free in hopes of someone else loving you might teach you to love yourself.

I hate you because you made me believe in a future that was simply this fiction you created in your head. And I wonder was there any truth to those promises I hung onto.

I hate you because you made me wait for something that I know now will never come true. And it hurts believing in someone that much.

I hate you because you taught me home wasn’t the place I grew up but rather a person.

And now I drive down streets where you are everywhere. At least your ghost is. Something about you I just can’t seem to let go of. And on every corner and every stop sign and every dead end I realize that’s where we are now.

I realize the only reason you are alive within me is because I’m keeping you there.

Holding memories like the are souvenirs that I can’t seem to let go of.

I think I hold things so tight out of fear of forgetting and if ever I forgot you I think I’d forget who I was.

I hate you because when you left you took so much of me. I failed to realize it was my fault for giving away pieces of myself to keep someone else whole.

And in the end, it was me that got hurt.

I hate you because I don’t trust people anymore. I look at them and question their motives. I look at them and wonder what do I even have to offer them because it feels like every part of me broke trying to keep you?

I hate you because you made me fight like hell to make it work but I realized it was only me fighting for us.

I hate you for the circles we ran in until both of us got tired.

I hate you for every moment you were horrible. Taking out every difficult thing on me like I could handle it. There was once a time I thought your complexity was alluring.

I hate you because I had to watch someone else get the love I deserved. The love I pinned after. The story I thought would be mine.

I hate you because you taught me how unfair life can be.

But for all the things I hate about you those are the same things I love.

I love you for teaching me it was me who was loving the right way and someone’s inability to love me back has nothing to do with me.

I love you for teaching what love actually is through everything you didn’t do. Every word you didn’t say. Every excuse and explanation that were just a waste of words in ears that grew tired.

I love you for showing me it isn’t about what people say it’s about what they do.

I love you for making me wait because it taught me about patience. And if I can wait that long for the wrong person, I’ll have no problem waiting for the right one.

I love you for teaching me about home. And maybe there are certain places I can’t drive without thinking of you. Maybe there are street corners where I’ll always see you. But on every road that now hurts, it’s made me who I am.

I’ve held on so tight to you because of the fact that it’s hard to let go, proves how real it might have been to me even if you couldn’t say the same thing.

You took so much of who I was it gave me time to realize who I want to be and I know I will never allow myself to be defined by someone else. It was there I learned strength and independence.

I love you for teaching how to love someone unconditionally because I really did love every version of you. And maybe we ran in circles because we wanted to make this work but sometimes you just can’t force it.

I love you for teaching me to fight for someone because I after you I learned to fight for myself.

I guess I’m starting to realize maybe we were both playing with fiction here, in love with the idea of what could have been.

I’m starting to realize it was never going to be us.

Because as much as I loved and hated the complexity and the high intensity of emotions, real love, and the right relationships will never be that difficult.

The truth is I hate you for every right reason.

And all those reasons come down to this genuine love I’ll always have walking away, looking at myself in the mirror, seeing the parts of myself that wouldn’t be there if it wasn’t for you.

I heard it’s been said you can only ever hate someone you once loved dearly.

So if ever our paths cross. I’ll look at you. You’ll look at me and we’ll realize all we have in common is past we want to forget.