I think there are some loves that aren’t meant to last, that burn what they’re meant to illuminate and drown what they’re meant to nourish. They’re destructive and deviant, a double-helix of pain and pleasure so complex in nature that you can’t isolate one from the other without pulling the whole thing apart.

I think I loved you like this, though sometimes it’s hard to be sure. You’re a fever dream burned into the back of my psyche, a scar I always feel but can’t always remember correctly. I find myself chasing the ghosts of memories through mazes of dead ends, never fully able to escape with them. It bothers me how I’ve already forgotten the way you smell, the way your hands felt on my skin. It bothers me how our forever was cut so short.

But in that span of time, we burned so brightly I swore I’d never see again. There was something about you that transformed every inch of me, that tore me apart and rebuilt my very being atom by atom. I haven’t been able to recognize myself since. But god, you loved me so hard that sometimes I forgot that you could only ever be my undoing. In the quiet stretches of the night, we dreamt of nothing but a future we couldn’t have, of a tomorrow we knew, deep down, would never come.

I’m not sure I’ll ever feel the same way again. I’m not sure I’ll ever meet someone like you, who can fill me to the brim one moment and gut me so entirely the next. Someone who will be able to look into my eyes and see me so fully, who will know every tear and fold of my soul. Sometimes, I’m not sure I’d ever want to.

I can’t say that I regret it, though. I knew I was playing with fire the very moment I met you. If our love could only ever amount to destruction, I was ready to burn the whole fucking city to the ground. And I did. We did. We let it become our own funeral pyre. But I can mourn the loss of everything that was and still recognize that if I could do it all over again, I would, as many times as the fates would let me. Some may call that foolishness, but deep in my bones, I can’t ignore the ache of destiny.

I think there are some loves that aren’t meant to last. Ours was brief, but my god, it was beautiful.