It's all darkness. Everywhere.

...

"And now, I'm glad I didn't know the way it all would end, the way it all would go..

Our lives are better left to chance

I could've missed the pain, but I'd have had to miss the dance..."

When you love someone, you give a part of yourself away. A part that you will never really ever get back. Life goes on as usual, and new experiences come, some that almost help you forget. Almost. But when the days grow long, and fatigue sets in, and you no longer have the strength to hold it all at bay, everything crashes in on you and it's all you can do to keep from drowning in not just grief, but a chasm of emptiness that just seems to grow the longer it stays on your mind. And you wish you could reach across space and time and turn back the clock. To a time of smiles and laughter, of tender moments, of arguments and make ups, of a deep sharing of mind to mind, soul to soul. But you know that can never be. Just that knowledge itself is like the twist of a knife, right through the heart. A vise that grips and never quite eases its hold. So much was right, but in the end, it only takes one wrong. One.

He taught me to believe in love. He showed me in so many simple ways, what it means to love. Many may be skeptical, but what we had was more real than anything else I have ever encountered across the years. I made so many mistakes, so did he, but in the end it wasn't the mistakes that brought us down. Fundamental beliefs that run too deep to compromise... In the end, it came down to that. But that doesn't negate in any way what we had between us. I miss him, every day. Even now, I cannot bear to picture his smile, for fear the flimsy walls I've managed to construct will cave and there will no longer be anything standing between me and the flood of grief.

I will never forget him. Even when I've managed to lay the memories to rest, he will always be in my heart. The first and only man I ever loved. And though over time, the nature of it may change, I know that I will always love him. Always.

...

I've always wondered... why be friends with people you don't respect? There's a big difference between civility and being friends with someone. The dynamics are totally different. How many of us would like finding out that the people we think of us "friends" actually don't like us, but hang out with us out of a misguided sense of inclusion, or worse, pity? Friendship is something beautiful and we would all like to believe that to some degree, we can trust the people we call friends. But when dynamics like these come into play, it jeopardizes the very structure on which friendship should be built. And I find that incredibly sad.

...

Every single day it hits me, just what I've lost. I see the contrasts everywhere, and I can't help but think that I'm never going to find that again. He was more real to me than anyone could begin to comprehend. There's a hole in me now that I'm not sure will ever completely heal. Life goes on, it has to and I'm not wallowing, but there's always an underlying ache. Amidst the laughter, the fun, lies the realization that a part of me is gone. And I'm never going to get it back.