You Will Always Be My Favorite Illusion

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For a while, what you were to me was something of a constant. You were an asymptote. You were a point on the horizon. You were a distant star twinkling just out of reach. You were so many things, but you were never mine. But despite everything, I was content.

I was content with only scratching against your surface. I was content with only seeing you through your glass walls. I was content with only knowing you through bits and pieces, never as a whole. I was content with only admiring you from a distance.

Life went on. I languished, I pined, I adored. But I never really told you how I felt. I lingered in such a state of limbo that I had been in for nearly two years. I hung on to hope, even as I contented myself with reading your clouded signals.

I tried to read your every word, every message, every action, but never really took a leap of faith, even at the moments when it seemed so clear.

Maybe that was my biggest mistake. To think that such a beautiful illusion could go on forever. To think that my fondness and admiration would last forever. To think that there would always be another tomorrow, even as the days and months ticked away.

And for what it’s worth, I suppose now is the time to come clean. I liked you. Hell, maybe I even loved you. I don’t know. But even my greyest days could turn bright by your smile. Even my darkest moments could be salvaged by your laugh. I used to tell myself that I would never tire of making you laugh. You kept me going, when all seemed darkest. You were my goal, my pinnacle, my light at the end of the tunnel. It was all certain, all constant.

But all that changed. Curtain call. The end of the line. The beautiful illusion shattered. At the times when my heart sang most for you, I wrote lists upon lists of reasons why to me, you were perfect. But as I go through them, I find that too many of the reasons why I might have loved you are now reasons why I now want to pull away. Your mysteriousness, the way you seemed to be an impregnable vessel, used to fill me with wonder. But now I am enamored with contempt.

Your distance, how you were always so hard to read, used to make me pine more poignantly than ever. But now I am merely lonely. Your passion for only the things you love, the way your eyes lit up when you talked about them, used to make me smile. But now I am only filled with exhaustion, because you never saw me the same way.

So, this is me, at the end of all things, saying thank you.

Thank you for being my fevered fantasy. Thank you for all the times you made me smile. Thank you for the days when you filled my thoughts with wonder. Thank you for the nights when you were the last thing I thought about before I fell asleep. It may have only been a wistful daydream, but what a beautiful dream it was. And at the precipice of my awakening, I cannot find it in myself to have regrets.

I don’t regret the two years I spent chasing after you, because in those two years, I know that what I felt was real. What I feel now is of no consequence. The past will remain as it always was, a melancholy monolith of love. You will always be the first person I ever pined for as poignantly as the moon pulls at the waves.

You will always be the star I wished upon every night as I feigned sleep. You were the first, and nothing will ever change that. But now I see that the stars were never truly in our favor. Now I see that such an illusion could never last. Now I see that it’s time for me to wake up.

So this is me again, saying my final goodbye in the midst of this midsummer night’s dream. Here’s to the dawn.