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Everything started the night all replies stopped coming from her end. It wasn’t immediate, but like time running from sunrise to sunset, just slow, fading, and then gone. Her voice toward me changed, I noticed it first, how it lost warmth, how her laughter stopped reaching her eyes during our FaceTime calls. The camera still caught her smiling, but somehow, those smiles stopped feeling like they belonged to me. Still, I held on, gripping hope like it was oxygen and I was drowning. I kept telling myself, over and over, she’s just busy, like a broken record trying to cover the silence. That her silence was temporary. But deep down, I knew. I was watching a fairytale with a sad ending. The beginning of the end. And still, I stayed when I should’ve taken a step and run. I loved when I should’ve healed and waited… when she was already long gone from what she once called safe with me.

I blamed it, blamed it on my own stubborn, calm, warming heart, blamed it on foolish hope, blamed it on every silent night, unanswered call, all the promises we made but had been cracked by her. I blamed it on the way I should’ve let go but kept loving. Still, I blame myself for falling in love, giving my all so deep, so hard, when I knew, knew deep down, that she was already gone and also lost for me not to find.

Why don’t you love me back? Why don’t you love me back? Why don’t you love me back? Questions I asked myself daily a hundred times, weekly a thousand times, hearing echoes of my own desperation, which made me sojourn into the state of depression.

I thought I was her forever, the one she never wanted to leave, and every air she breathed. We made plans, carved dreams in the night sky and stars, talking about our final forever, but we never reached it. She left because she chose to, slipping out like smoke burning from a matchstick, leaving pain so sharp it feels like a wound I’ll never stop treating or taking medication for.

I blame it again, or believing in everything we called "us," trusting every word of hers, for holding on to a shadow when there was nothing in it for me but a free fall, jumping from the sky without a parachute.

I'm still here… sober, soaked in an ocean of memories that won’t dry. Not looking for another to make me whole, not ready to move on, because a part of me still keeps waiting for her to trace her way back to me. But the phone stays silent. No calls. No texts. She is gone, gone beyond where my sight can see.

It's irritating, the way I fell so deep, so painfully, so utterly helpless. My all was given, my heart, my time, my soul. But it all fell flat like a house of playing cards in a storm, like photographs from all saved albums torn by her, like silenced, swallowed love.

And I blame myself, again. And again. Because maybe the thorn in my side isn’t her, it’s me. For loving too much. For waiting too long. For believing in us when I shouldn’t have.

Why don’t you love me back? I keep asking, even though I know the answer. You never did. You were never really here. And I didn’t accept the truth because I was a fool.

I'm alone in my studio, howling in the silence of the void she left. Frozen moments, photos of us plastered on every wall like an exhibition. Slaps in the face that felt like smiles. I stared at the wall of the plastered picture frame in the exhibition room, like the one where you laughed like every moment and forever was ours. Twitch in my fingers, aching to tear it down, but I can’t. Because somewhere, a tiny voice whispers deeply into the wreckage: maybe she’ll trace her way back to find me again.

I wore my coat, stepped into the gray world outside. Streetlights flickering, cars moving so fast by like time itself doesn’t care about me. Now I'm walking aimlessly, caught in the loop again, blame, blame. For loving you and trusting too hard, for hoping when I shouldn’t have, thought forever was real, but I was being a fool for that.

Every inch from my side, a car came crashing around the corner. My heart pumped up. Maybe a sign? But I didn’t stop. I kept walking, numb, almost welcoming danger into myself. Later, I climbed a scrapper by the roadside, the wind biting at my very skin, dark invitations whispering below the abyss. I wanted to let go. I wanted to drop, to end the pain and end all waiting.

But I don’t.

What if she comes back? What if this nightmare has a dawn?

The thought claws at me like a venomous thorn. Hope, the worst kind of pest. The headache that never stops pounding in my skull. A nuisance that won’t leave me alone.

My eyes closed. My fingers dug into the edge, the cold wind slicing through me like truth. I took one last breath, thinking maybe this was it… but then I whispered to myself, not today. And I stepped back, heart pounding, still broken, but still here. Because even in this broken loop, this vicious cycle of regret and blame, a cruel joke played by my heart, something still flickers there.

I walked through the chaos of a street gang fight, violence erupting all around me. Fists clashing, bullets flying. Yet I felt nothing. Not scared, not bothered. As if I was meant to die. But somehow, I didn’t. I still kept walking.

This is pain. This is regret. This is me, blaming myself for loving you.

Why don’t you love me back? I kept asking, noise and silence of this endless storm. Even when I know, deep down, the answer was never meant for me. Messages, texts, pictures, little pieces of my soul, sent straight to her phone. I even found her new address, the place where she’s trying to build a life without me. I thought maybe, just maybe, she’d see it. She’d hear me. But no. Silence. Ignored. Like I never existed.

Why? What did I do wrong? Begging for answers that never come, I keep asking. Questions bouncing back to me like an echo of my own voice. Just one explanation, one reason. It's pain, pure and unfiltered. It’s annoying, like a song stuck on repeat, her silence looping in my head. And damn, it’s almost rage now. A fire burning so low, threatening to explode.

I’ve cried a lot. My tears have run dry. But guess what? My tears won’t bring you back. They don’t rewind time or fix the mess we made. No. They just fall, blamed, broken, leaving me standing here, still heartbroken, still carrying the weight of a love that never wanted to stay. The silence she left behind is louder than any scream I could ever make. Chasing shadows of a future we never got to touch, reaching out to a ghost that isn’t there every night. Maybe I was just a photograph fading in the sun, a chapter she outgrew. But for me? I’m stuck in a broken frame, bruised, and waiting for a love that turned into a wound I can’t heal.

I blame myself. Again and again. For loving too hard. For hoping too much. For believing in forever when forever already walked away. Sometimes, the person you love most teaches you how to live with the pain of being forgotten.

Maybe that’s the cruelest truth.

So yeah… I’m still broken. Still bleeding. Still here. And I don’t know if I’ll ever stop hurting… Or stop loving what’s already gone.

She’s gone.