I fell into the obvious trap. it was clear from the beginning.

it’s funny how things moved on, but then i’m still stuck, split into two — one from the past and another here, now.

I try to comfort myself in ways you used to, or at least ways you promised you would. i find myself petting my head, it soothes me. i close my eyes and imagine the plant we’d been growing hadn’t already wilted, the venus flytrap we cared for still there.

I still tear up at the thought of Bradley. like a seed planted out of season, he was too soon.

you gave me the comfort I didn’t know I needed, but now that it’s gone i try to fill its vacancy with sweet things, calm things, as that is what you represented. i finally felt at peace, not realizing that i had been in a storm before.

There’s nothing wrong with you; there never has been. There is an oddness, a somberness around me, but as of yet I don’t know what it is. I am nevertheless trudging on, keeping my life moving. but it doesn’t feel the same. Maybe the absence of you wouldn’t feel like such a vacuum if i had aired my problems with people who would care.

oh, they would care, but I don’t think they would understand. it’s funny, growing older, i began to realize everyone’s place in the world. Not from an outside view, but from their own perspective. My mom is much less confident than i used to see her as. she has so much love to give, but I don’t think she understands the weirdness. it flies by her.

my brother is the same. he is smart, but he will not understand.

I find myself reaching out for someone to understand, and then I realize that you would understand perfectly. but we both know I can’t tell you about it. it wouldn’t be right, not with what you deal with. I’m not important, never was, and shouldn’t be. I should be on the coast to observe the waves crash on the shore, but never to wade in. it’s not my place, never was, and shouldn’t be.

yet I find myself wishing so miserably that I could be swallowed by that endless warm drift, floating on the water, letting my unhappiness escape into the cacaphony of movements.

it’s funny how they say that the saddest people put on the greatest acts. I considered that to be ridiculous until I saw myself doing the same. I make other people happy, and i at least can bring some solace to the unhappy by understanding. it’s this ability to be both simultaneously — joyful yet depressive — that makes me feel isolated. I desperately search for a hint of the same in someone else. I saw it in you, which attracted me to you intensely, but I didn’t know it at the time.

there’s a certain intelligence I miss, and haven’t really found since. I really do miss you. I think you miss me a little bit. I think it’s waning in you, which is good. allow it to wane. let the pain dissolve into those waves.

the intriguing thing is that I understand it all. I know i will get better, there is no question. don’t take that to mean I will forget or lose the pain. I just know that time will continue to pass, and I will get older. It will be fine. I will be fine. there will be that dandelion memory, blown away unexpectedly. i am the stem. somewhere you, seed, will continue your story, but not with me. that is how things are supposed to happen, but there is an unavoidable sadness of the departure.

instead i will trudge on as is my nature, but I will hoard beautiful things I find, and they will have a piece of you in them.

there’s not a piece of you in everything I do now, and it scares me. you invited me to your drommeland, and now you have left. I am stuck to explore what you have left for me, which I am forever thankful for. no one will ever know it but us.

i will be the gardener in your stead.