I have always been a hopeless romantic. And as one, I have always believed in the thought that sometimes, no matter how much you love someone, there might come a time when you would have to let him go. No matter how many memories you have shared with each other. No matter how much it hurts.

Until you happened.

The thing is, you changed me. You made me realize that it shouldn’t be that way. You made me question the romantic in me. You made me ask, “Why would you leave if you still love me?” Because ever since you happened, I started believing that love – real love – should be fought for. Real love should conquer all odds. Real love should endure. Real love should be greater than anyone’s failures and shortcomings.

This is why I’ll never understand you for saying that you love me, and then leaving. Because the love you made me feel was intoxicating. You took me high above the clouds and, for the first time in my life, even it was frightening you helped me fly.

You made me touch the constellations. You brought me to the sky. You drowned me with endearing words, and while between us I was the more expressive one, you swam with me in an ocean filled with hope and we showered ourselves with dreams. You gave me happiness. And in a flicker of an eye, you were gone. You walked away and vanished behind the clouds. You walked away and left me afloat. You walked away and took my happiness—you.

You were my happiness. But you left, and I might never understand why.

Or at least why did you have to. Did you just wake up one day and realize that I am no longer the face you want to see? Were you suffocated? Was I not enough? Was your love as weak as your faith in us? This is why I’ll never understand you for saying that you love me, and then leaving. Because you never gave me enough reasons. You see, every day, starting the day that you walked away, I ask myself why again and again. And the question will always be more complicated than yesterday’s.

The more questions I gather, the greater the space between us become. But then again, maybe the vagueness of how you left is my closure. Maybe if you had given me the reasons I needed, it would’ve hurt more. So maybe, just maybe, oblivious to you, your saying that you love me and then leaving was your way of making me hurt less. It may not always make sense, but for my own sanity, I need to at least hold on to that reason.

You were my universe. But now, as weeks and months passed by leaving only traces of you in the air, you have become my heartache. And I want to stop hurting. I want to stop writing about you. I want the scar you’ve left me with to heal.

To be completely honest, I want to forget you. Or at least forget the fact that I am in love with you, and that once you were in love with me, too. But I know that forgetting you is an impossible feat so I’d settle for these yet unread words. Because one thing remains, and that is the bitter truth that you’re no longer here. And while I’ll never understand you for your leaving, I have accepted it and I will stop blaming you for doing so. I’m no longer trying because I don’t want to lose myself in the process. I want to keep the passion and the love inside me burning. I want to preserve my worth. I want to wait until someone else comes along and stays.

I will live for myself. I will breathe and I will consider this pain as a good thing—because I feel. I will stop asking.

Tonight, I will hug you in my dreams for one last time and we shall cry until morning comes. I will wake up and I will see the sun and burn with it. I will look at your loving and leaving me as one of life’s biggest mysteries. Then I will forgive myself.

I’ll forgive myself for holding a grudge on you for leaving me hanging on a thin, thin rope. I’ll forgive myself for hoping that you will come back. And most of all, I’ll forgive myself for loving you more than I should’ve loved myself. Because I know better now. I don’t deserve to be intoxicated; I need to be sober when I’m in love. I need to see what’s ahead. I need my mind to work while my hearts beats. While I deserve clouds, oceans, and happiness, what I deserve more is a hand that will hold mine wherever I am. I don’t deserve someone whose knees shake in the lightest earthquake; I deserve someone who holds on.

Maybe we just weren’t right for each other. The reason why you left even if you still love me is as simple as that. Because if we were, we would’ve lasted. If we were you would’ve stayed. If we were, God would’ve touched your heart and made you decide otherwise.

So goodbye, my ex-lover. You are, and probably will always be, my most beautiful downfall.