*insert rehearsed, low-risk, carefully crafted message here

i worked hard on this message - you’re a great person btw

you’ve told me i have a big heart before. more than once. and at the time i was like… ahh… that’s sweet to say. you were acknowledging it. i didn’t realize then what it actually meant to carry something like that.

because right now it feels like every edge has been worn down, like there’s nothing protecting it anymore. and i’m angry about that. i’m angry that i even question something i used to value so much about myself. i used to be proud of how deeply i could love. now i sit here wondering if that’s the very thing that makes me easy to break.

because i don’t understand how people can leave others in the dark. i don’t understand how you can care about someone, know what they mean to you, and still walk away without giving them something solid to stand on. not perfection. not some beautifully wrapped explanation. just truth. something real. something they can hold onto so they don’t have to sit there replaying everything, trying to make sense of what just happened. i hate that feeling. i hate how unfinished it feels. i hate the wondering.

i think one of the cruelest things you can do to someone is leave them waiting. not even the leaving. not even the truth. it’s the waiting. it’s knowing you have the answer, or at least a version of one, and choosing silence instead. choosing distance. choosing to let someone sit there and spin in circles trying to land on something you could have just said.

and don’t tell me you didn’t have an answer.

“i don’t know” is an answer.

“i’m confused” is an answer.

“i don’t have the capacity for this” is an answer.

that’s something a person can stand on. that’s something they can take, process, grieve, and eventually make peace with. not that sad little watered down, emotionless chatgpt-ass message you sent. the kind that sounds clean on the surface but has nothing underneath it. the kind that feels like it was rewritten over and over until it was just detached enough for you to send without having to actually feel what you were doing. and somehow, that feels worse. because now it’s not just that you left. it’s that you couldn’t even be real when you did.

but silence? silence is where people start turning on themselves. silence is where you replay every moment, every word, every look, trying to find the exact point where things shifted. silence is where you start asking, was it me? did i miss something? did i imagine all of it? and that’s the part that feels cruel. because now it’s not just heartbreak. now it’s confusion layered on top of it. now it’s self-doubt. now it’s this open loop that never fully closes.

and i don’t understand how someone can be okay with that. are you okay with wondering? are you okay knowing someone is sitting there, stuck in something you could have helped resolve with a single honest sentence? are you okay with that weight?

maybe you are. maybe you’re okay keeping it all inside and letting it eat away at you. maybe that’s how you cope. maybe someone leaving you in the dark is your norm. but it is not mine. maybe you’re okay replaying scenarios over and over, wondering this, that, or the other, living in that loop like it doesn’t consume you. i could never go on like that. my brain does not have the room to compartmentalize something like that. i don’t know how to pretend something didn’t matter when it did. i don’t know how to neatly tuck it away and move on like it didn’t leave a mark.

because i’m not built that way.

because i feel things all the way through.

because i care all the way through.

and because of that, i need truth all the way through.

i’ve told people in my life before, when i die, don’t keep it quiet. don’t soften it. don’t hide it. tell people what happened. tell them how. tell them why, if you can. because i cannot stand the idea of someone loving me and being left to question what happened to me. i wouldn’t want that for anyone. not even after i’m gone.

so why is it somehow acceptable in life? why is it okay to leave someone confused, to let them sit with a thousand different versions of the truth, trying to piece together something you could have just said?

maybe it’s because you didn’t have the capacity. maybe you just weren’t that into me. maybe you found something easier, something lighter, something that didn’t require you to meet me where i was. maybe it’s all three. i don’t know. and that’s the problem.

because now i’m left here trying to shrink something down to one answer when the reality is, i may never get one.

and maybe one day i’ll get that closure. maybe one day it’ll make sense. or maybe i won’t. maybe i’ll have to wonder for the rest of my life. and that’s the part that feels the most cruel.

but what i do know is this.

i won’t become someone who does that to another person.

i won’t trade my heart for something smaller just because it hurts right now.

i don’t need easy love. i don’t want shallow love. i want real. even if it’s uncomfortable. even if it’s hard to say out loud. because the truth, no matter how much it stings, at least lets someone breathe.

and this heart of mine, as tired and angry as it feels right now, still deserves that.

and so does yours.