u/shedworker68

Today I had experience the negative sound of your excessive motorcycle exhaust rev bombing. It’s very loud and I’m trying to study. Please stop
-concern student.

They say...

"You fall in love too easy."

Easy?

Nah...

Easy is walking away without looking back.

I leave fingerprints on people...

And somehow...

They always leave carrying pieces of me.

Maybe that's why every goodbye

feels less like a breakup...

And more like a burial.

See...

I don't know how to love halfway.

Never have.

Every woman I've ever loved

met the same version of my heart.

Not borrowed.

Not leftovers.

Not a replacement for the last.

If I loved you...

I loved you

like you were the last page

of a book

I never wanted to finish.

Maybe that's my inheritance.

I'm so good

at making people feel at home...

Because I've never quite known

how to feel at home

inside myself.

So I kept searching

for my reflection...

In eyes that weren't mine.

Thinking...

If someone loved me enough...

Maybe I'd finally recognize

the man looking back.

But borrowed mirrors...

Never show you

your own face.

Love became my religion.

I kept praying

in other people's temples...

Wondering why

I still felt lost.

I kept searching

for my reflection...

In eyes that weren't mine.

But no matter

how many people loved me...

I couldn't recognize myself...

Until I finally learned...

Someone else's love...

Was never supposed

to introduce me

to me.

Borrowed faith...

Never saved anybody.

Maybe that's why

people call me a lover boy.

Not because I love too many...

But because every time I love...

I believe...

It's forever.

Then there was you.

God...

There was you.

If life had gone

the way we dreamed...

We'd almost be

five years deep.

Five birthdays.

Five Christmases.

Five years

of choosing each other.

Crazy...

How you can grieve

memories

that were never even made.

Sometimes I don't miss you...

I miss the man

I was supposed to become

beside you.

That's the real heartbreak.

Not losing the person.

Losing the future.

I crossed a line.

Not because I stopped loving you...

But because I forgot

that love

isn't just a feeling.

It's discipline.

It's loyalty.

It's waking up

every single day

and choosing

the person

who already chose you.

Temptation whispered

like destiny.

I listened.

For a moment...

I confused desire

for freedom.

I mistook distance

for difference.

Thought another road...

Meant another destination.

Turns out...

Every road

eventually circles back...

To the man

you tried to outrun.

And while I was chasing

another horizon...

I let my own sunset disappear.

People ask

why I told you.

Because guilt

is the loudest roommate

I've ever lived with.

It sleeps beside you.

Eats beside you.

Stares back at you

every time

you face a mirror.

Some lies

save relationships.

But they kill

the man telling them.

So I chose honesty.

Even though honesty

cost me everything.

Every "I'm sorry"

was really me saying...

"I know the man you deserved...

...and I hate that I wasn't him."

If I could trade

every lesson I learned...

Just to unbreak your heart...

I'd walk into that fire

barefoot.

Without asking

how long it'd burn.

Because some lessons...

Cost too much

to be worth learning.

Some nights...

I still hear the sirens.

Not the ones from stories...

The ones inside my own head.

They don't sing

about treasure.

Or power.

Or another woman.

They sing

about everything

I wanted to become...

Then everything

I wish

I'd never wished for.

They sing

about five years

that never happened.

About children

that only ever lived

inside conversations.

About a front door

I never got to unlock.

(Slow down here.)

Ghosts aren't just people.

(Pause.)

They're possibilities.

They're Sunday mornings...

that never happened.

Empty chairs...

waiting for names

that were never spoken.

Wedding vows...

still echoing

inside a church...

that was never built.

Ghosts aren't dead.

They're futures...

that still remember you.

It's a delicious itch.

The kind you scratch

until your skin gives way...

Only to realize

the itch

was never on the surface.

It was underneath.

Somewhere

you could never reach.

And the more you chase it...

The deeper it hides.

Until desire

becomes grief.

The song kept telling me...

"The thing you want most...

...is the thing you'll never have."

Then it whispered

something crueler.

"The thing you'll never have...

...is the thing you already had...

...and lost."

(Pause.)

Every promise

I failed to keep...

Started singing back to me.

Louder.

Louder.

Until I couldn't tell

whether I was running

towards home...

Or away from it.

Maybe that's the hardest truth.

Sometimes...

You don't fear losing home.

You fear returning...

To the man

who lost it.

Then life...

Did what life always does.

It introduced me

to somebody new.

And I was scared.

Not because

I couldn't love again.

Because I knew...

I could.

People think

a second love

betrays the first.

I don't.

I think

the second love

inherits the wisdom

the first one paid for.

She isn't your replacement.

She never asked to be.

She's simply another heart...

Trusting mine.

And this time...

I refuse

to make my love

carry the weight

of my regret.

I don't chase butterflies anymore.

I plant gardens.

Because butterflies

don't stay

where flowers

are admired.

They stay

where flowers

are cared for.

Maybe...

I'll always be

a lover boy.

The kind

who falls too fast.

Dreams too far.

Feels too deeply.

Wears his heart

like it forgot

what armour was for.

But I'd rather

be remembered

as the man

who loved too much...

Than the man

who was too afraid

to love at all.

Because every woman

I've truly loved...

Deserved

my whole heart.

And every woman

I love from this day on...

Will get

a wiser one.

Not because

I forgot you.

But because

you taught me

that love

isn't measured

by how hard you fall...

It's measured

by how well

you stay.

They say...

I fall in love too easy.

Maybe.

Or maybe...

I just spent too many years...

Looking for myself...

In people...

Instead of meeting myself first.

Because love...

Was never something I lacked.

It was something...

I kept giving away.

Until there was barely enough left...

To introduce myself...

To me.

(Pause.)

They say...

Sirens sing

about the thing

you desire most.

I used to think...

They would've sung

your name.

But now I know...

They would've sung

mine.

(Pause.)

Not this man.

The boy...

Before regret

learned my address.

Before guilt

unpacked its bags.

Before shame

started paying rent.

Before love

became something

I measured

by what I'd lost.

Maybe...

Home was never a country.

Never a city.

Never even a woman.

Home...

Was the version of me...

That knew love...

Wasn't something to chase.

It was something

to protect.

So if another hand...

Ever finds mine...

I won't ask her...

To heal me.

I won't ask her...

To complete me.

I won't ask her...

To carry wounds...

She never gave me.

I'll simply love her.

Completely.

Honestly.

Faithfully.

The way I always wanted to.

Because I finally understand...

You can lose the love of your life...

And still become...

The love...

Your life was trying to teach you.

And maybe...

That's the closest thing...

To redemption...

Any of us...

Ever get.