I still remember him and how he made me feel.

It was an emptiness I thought no one could ever fill, even though I knew that, one day, Imight feel differently. I thought that no words, games, or faces would ever touch himbecause he was not in the world; he floated above it and permeated everything. All that Iexperienced connected to my memories of him. It was like he had spun a web that I couldn’t escape. I was the trapped fly, and he was the spider that neglected this web in favour of one in a better location. I felt abandoned and trapped; I needed him to return and unpick me from the web or consume me until I was free.

I looked for him in every crowd, but I was scared to find him.

The memory of him weighed heavily on my heart. I began to think that it became so heavythat it snapped away from the cord that connected it to my head. I feared that my heartwould search for him endlessly and never return. I thought the cord was permanentlysevered. I thought I could see his eyes in every sunrise and sunset, and I thought I wouldcontinue to do so for the rest of my life and that the cord would be permanently severed.

He became a ghost. The memories I held grew older but never faded. I would wake up andimagine him beside me before I opened my eyes to the empty bed. I would lie to myself inthe morning and smile even though my skin could barely hold my insides together. He made me hurt. He made my head ache, my heart beat, my lungs stutter, and my feet numb. I thought that my heart didn’t want to beat unless it was in time to his, that my eyes didn’t want to see unless they were looking at him; I thought my lips could never kiss again.

I would be with him in dreams. I would witness and hold him, and we would be mundanetogether. When I awoke and looked in the mirror, I realised that he hadn’t seen me in six months and I see him every night. To him, I was just another face that would become lost inside a scrap book of memories growing dusty in his attic.

I thought I could not be beautiful unless I was his, that I would search every corner of theearth for this feeling. I thought that I would rather live in pain than live without him.

But, one day, the sun rose, and I did not think of him. I wiped the dust from the corners ofmy eyes, made a coffee and mused at the idea that I had a dreamless sleep. The spider’sweb was so fine and neglected that it had fallen apart. I buzzed away into the day unawarethat I had made the first step into okay-ness. One day without thoughts of him turned intomany at a time. Until eventually, it is his face that has become lost into my scrapbook ofmemories, and it is my eyes that I see in the sunrise and sunset.