I see you. Asleep. Swept into the tangle of fluffy white, wrapped in yourself. Alone, in your head. Alone, with me. And I miss you. I miss you because you’re asleep. I miss you because you aren’t here. I miss you because I miss what you were. That peacefully unknowing face seems so worn, so pale. Too much so. And I know why. But I wish I didn’t. Because I wish you weren’t.

I don’t want to stay with you. And I can’t bear to leave you. I can’t bear to do anything but hang on. To hope. But hope is blind. And this lack of sight has left me open to your pain. Just wanting you not to hurt has wounded me.

But I remember. I remember what you were. How I fell in love with you. That flame in your eyes that caused a burning in my soul. That scorched you forever in my heart. And now...only now is the wound beginning to ache. It pulses with this dull throbbing, threatening to rip open. While my hope so desperately tries to soothe it.

I love you. And you used to know it. Not now. Because you aren’t you. You’re a persona. And you know that. And you use it as your excuse. You’re somebody else; it’s expected of you. You have to please them—the masses—and you’ve forgotten about me. You’ve become so wrapped up in the rest of it, in your entitlement, that you refuse to even respect yourself anymore.

I used to respect you. I used to admire you. And I used to worry for you. My heart would pinch in its concern for you, for your youth. For the naivety that you hid so very well, but not well enough from the monsters in your own heart. The monsters that so slowly surfaced, as they devoured your innocence. The innocence that few would argue you ever appeared to have, but that I always saw. While others admired your unruly nature, I admired the underlying softness of your being. Your sensitivity. Your vulnerability.

And others, took advantage of it. I tried to protect you. I tried to help you. I thought my love was enough. If you had me, who could do you wrong? But I wasn’t enough. And I was too scared to see. To believe. That your biggest threat would be yourself.

Still, you’ve stayed with me. Despite my disappointment. Despite my pleading and tears and rage. You need me, and I know that. I need you. I just don’t know how. I don’t know what I can do for you, or what you’re doing for me. Even with me, with my hope and my concern and my love, you’ve fallen. So far, so hard, that I don’t know if I can bring you back. And I don’t know if you’re strong enough to pull yourself up. But now I know, you are your only hope.

I can’t fix you. I want to. I wish to. I’ve tried to. But you have to. And I can’t make you. I still care. I still love you. I always will. But I can’t stay like this. I can’t hurt myself like this. Because you’re so far gone you can’t even feel your own pain, much less mine.

So with these written words I’m telling you, because you’ve yet to ever hear me. This is my appeal to the real you, the one I know still lingers. The one whose sparks sometimes twinkle in your eyes, attempting to ignite the old flame that’s then so quickly suffocated by your imposter.

To that imposter, your monster, I say: this is the end. No longer will I feed you. Will I let you run to me and use me and promise me never again. No longer will I believe your pleas, your but I need you. I will not watch you break, and I will not try to put you back together. I will not tell you it’s alright, I understand, because it’s not, and I don’t.

I will no longer be there to soothe you in the torment of your own self-destruction.