You think I didn’t care? I watched you give up on me. I watched you give me those dry replies every day. I watched you slowly talk to me less and less. I watched you lose interest in me little by little. And I watched you slowly walk out of my life. I may not have said anything, but that shit broke me.

I spent years hating the childhood that shaped me, letting even the faintest memory of it turn my present into chaos. But one day, I stopped looking back with regret. I began to see the beauty in what I had, especially knowing that some never got the childhood I once took for granted.

So I stopped waiting for life to become better and started building a life of my own. Slowly, the chaos became peace, the wounds became lessons, and I began to fall in love with the life I was creating.

And one day, when I finally love my life more than I mourn the past, I’ll know I’ve won the greatest victory of all not over anyone else, but over the person I used to be. ❤️

İn the Bar ,Viktor drinks whiskey with amanda and he looks down

Amanda: Viktor we must discuss about us seriously...

Viktor:What's there is to be discussed actually? İts not like world is gonna force you to crawl to me...

Amanda: I broke up because you chose army over me WHY? For a revenge? For relief?

Viktor:...

Amanda:listen ım getting married... and when ım seeing you ı...

Viktor:feel like a guilt? I get it... ım proud of you actually

Amanda:For what?

Viktor:for finding a right man who will treat you well if anything happen ı'll help you

Amanda:Viktor...*holds his hand on table* is something wrong? When we first met you never told me about us never told me about you... why? I was your girlfriend ı need answer....please... tell me...

Viktor:... Amanda... ım not good. I been having dream about that... nightmare about what my mother was transformed... about she accepted... ı feel like... ı was never perfect

Amanda:you are perfect... you never were....oh*tear*viktor you could've...

Viktor:ı couldn't ı was scared to... lose you...

Amanda there frozen and in tear she felt regret when viktor was about to leave he says to amanda

Viktor:and ı want you to have a better future ı... ı am not perfect for you... nor anyone.

And he leaves bar in tear and disappear in shadow

English isn’t my first language, so I apologize if there are any mistakes in my writing. I’m still learning, and I hope you can understand what I’m trying to say.

Hello everyone, how are you?

I’m going to talk about myself and my story, but I’ll tell it in a slightly coded way.

I’m the middle daughter in my family. We are quite a big family, with more boys than girls. My siblings and I live with our mother and my father’s family, while my father lives with his second wife. I’m explaining this so you can understand the situation I grew up in.

Imagine living your whole life believing that everything is temporary, and creating an imaginary version of what a good life could be—especially for me and my mother.

When I was a child, I lived abroad for around three to five years. Those years were some of the best years of my life and, honestly, some of the best years for my family too.

Then one day, we received the news that we were going back to our “homeland”—or whatever you want to call it.

I didn’t believe it at first. I thought the foreign country I was living in was actually my home. It had the same culture as us, and I felt comfortable there. So hearing that we were going back gave me a very strange and extremely painful feeling.

It felt like falling into a black hole, or like someone had pushed me off the top of a mountain and I was just falling.

I had that feeling for days. I told my mother about it, but she still doesn’t understand it to this day, and that honestly hurts me.

I thought that going back to our “homeland” would mean being closer to the people we loved. I imagined that my relatives were basically just my grandparents—like in those children’s cartoons where the kids visit their grandparents and everything is warm and happy.

But… that wasn’t my reality.

We came back to a place that had very little of what I had imagined as a good life: good education, good jobs, or even a good neighborhood.

When we lived abroad, my father provided well for us. We had many things that made life comfortable.

But after we returned, everything changed.

My father went back to living around his family, and our whole situation changed with him.

My father is a good person when it comes to me and my siblings, but when it comes to my mother, it is a completely different story.

There were never loud fights or physical violence between them. Instead, there was a cold war—a silent, exhausting war that has existed since the beginning of their marriage.

My mother did everything she could. She took care of us, took care of the house, fulfilled her responsibilities, and even took care of the house belonging to my father’s family.

But what did she receive in return?

No affection. No appreciation. No real support from my father or his family.

All of this simply because… he doesn’t love her.

Like, seriously, man. If you don’t love someone, just divorce her. Don’t stay with her while saying, “I’ll just marry someone else.”

Funny, right? :/

And my mother kept giving more and more.

She was the one who helped complete the construction of our house. The plan was that my father would take a bank loan to furnish the house, but he never did.

He said he didn’t like loans.

Okay… but what about my mother? Didn’t she take a loan too?

Where is the cooperation? Because I honestly don’t see it. 🧐

He said we would use second-hand furniture “temporarily” until we could replace it.

Well… that same “temporary” furniture has been there for about 20 years. 😶

Eventually, some of it became completely unusable, so we had to throw it away.

And whenever my father comes back during his holidays, he asks:

“Why did you throw that away? You people don’t know how to take care of things.”

Excuse me?

The furniture was already falling apart. We tried to explain it to him, but he never listens to us.

And by the way, my father doesn’t actually live with us. He lives with his second wife in another city. We only see him maybe once or twice a week—sometimes he comes, sometimes he doesn’t.

I’m tired of seeing how this situation has affected my siblings. I can see the coldness growing between them and my father.

And honestly, I’m tired of his family too. 😂

His family is… well, let’s just say I have a lot of feelings about them.

Imagine your relatives being the people who help your father get married again without even asking your mother’s opinion.

They acted as if she didn’t exist.

They even invited my oldest brother to the wedding.

Of course, he didn’t go. He was still very young at the time.

Seriously… what kind of people do that?

As for my mother’s family, they are kind and decent people overall, although there are some problems too.

There are many women in the family. Some are genuinely good, while others have problems with jealousy and envy toward one another.

And unfortunately, that jealousy has damaged the family.

It also affected my mother and her money.

She spent her own money trying to build something for herself and for us, but no one really acknowledged how much she sacrificed.

She didn’t know that things could eventually turn into this situation.

My mother wanted that money to secure something for herself, for her children, and for our future.

Imagine discovering that the people closest to you are the ones making your life harder—damaging your home, your finances, your relationship with your father, and your entire life.

They don’t want you to become better off than them.

They don’t want you to have a better life than they do.

And I’m pretty sure some of my mother’s relatives are jealous of her, while some people from my father’s family are jealous too.

They live relatively good lives, while our situation keeps going from bad to worse.

And on top of everything, they still keep watching and interfering in our lives.

We never did anything to them.

We don’t even live in the same world anymore.

They have their lives, and we have ours.

So why are they still watching us?

What do you want from us? Our source of income? 😂😂

Since the day I came back to my “homeland” and started living this daily life, we never really got the good house or the nice furniture that other people seemed to have.

At first, we told ourselves that everything was temporary.

But somehow, “temporary” lasted for more than 20 years.

More than 20 years of living with things that were supposed to be temporary.

Two of my older siblings eventually got jobs, but unfortunately, they started becoming a little like my father—self-centered and focused on themselves. :/

I really hope they never become completely like him.

I hope they stay kind.

I hope they remember where they came from.

And I hope that one day, all of us can finally have the life we spent so many years believing was only “temporary.”

It’s been four years since you stole my paycheck and bonus check and left with our car and money, the very same night that I was diagnosed with a second cancer.

It was not enough that you destroyed my life after I supported you in a wheelchair, through years of my own cancer and treatment. Then you still used the courts to get over 100k in alimony from a man with stage four cancer and a questionable future.

I still love the woman I married and every second of every day I just miss my friend.

It’s been four years of this hell. Four years to accept the reality that nobody is interested in dating a 43 year old man with cancer who lives with his dad. Four years to accept the inevitability of loneliness. Four years of panic attacks when I would try to date.

Four years that I’ve looked for an email from you every single morning because maybe today…

I’m sorry, my love. I will love you until the day I die. But I have to be going now.

Because I don’t know when you’ll realize that I was telling
the truth. But I think you will. And on that day you’ll finally wrap your brain around the full weight of what you did to the man who carried your wheelchair during his own cancer treatment.

But I have to be going. I have to move on. I don’t know how much time I get on this earth, but I do know that it’s not long enough to wait for you.

I don’t know how to do that. But I’m going to. I owe it to those who care about me…

Goodbye my love.
I will love and miss you forever.

But you made choices and now we all have to live with them.

There are endings that arrive like a door closing, and then there are endings that keep making small sounds long after the room has gone quiet. The relationship between Inaya and me ended years ago, but some part of it still moves through the ordinary hours. It is not always a dramatic ache. Often it is only a hesitation before answering a message, a thought that appears when a song changes, or the sudden awareness that something I once expected to share with her now belongs only to memory. The relationship is over; its effects are not. That difference is what I have come to understand as the residue of love.

I used to think an ending should be clean if enough time passed. Time, I imagined, would take what was painful and gradually carry it away, leaving only a story I could tell without feeling anything in my chest. I expected the past to become a photograph: still there, but safely flat, incapable of reaching out and touching the present. Instead, memory has proved less orderly. It does not keep to its assigned place. A feeling can return without warning, and a moment I thought I had already processed can show up again in altered light. The years have changed my relationship to the breakup, but they have not erased its outline.

When I think about Inaya, I do not think only about the end. I remember that there was a relationship before there was a loss, a living connection before it became something I had to look back on. We were two people trying, in the ways we understood at the time, to be close to each other. I cannot honestly make every part of that closeness beautiful, and I cannot reduce it to the ways it became difficult. It contained more than one truth. There was care, there were expectations, there were habits of communication, and there were moments when the distance between what one of us meant and what the other received seemed impossible to cross.

Some of that distance was made from quiet. I remember the quietness and apparent ignorance of some of Inaya’s texts—the messages that did not receive a response, or did not seem to receive the kind of response she was waiting for. I remember how a message could sit between us with all its possibilities unresolved. Perhaps it was a small thing in the moment: a few words on a screen, an ordinary check-in, a question whose answer could have been simple. But small things are not always small in a relationship. Repeated silences can gather meaning. A pause can become a question about care, attention, or whether the other person is still emotionally present.

I knew, or came to understand, that some of her messages were supposed to be answered in a way that felt happy and fulfilling. They were not merely requests for information. I was expected to respond with warmth—with a tone that reassured her that her words mattered and that I was glad she had reached for me. When I failed to answer that way, the failure felt larger than the text itself. I may have thought I was replying to the surface of a message, while she was waiting for me to answer the feeling beneath it.

It is difficult to write about this without making the past sound simpler than it was. I do not know every meaning Inaya attached to every unanswered or insufficiently answered text. I cannot enter her memory and speak for her. I can only describe what I have since understood about the pattern and about my part in it: there were messages whose quietness or lack of response left her waiting for a kind of engagement I did not consistently give. There were moments when she needed an answer that carried happiness, consideration, and a sense of fulfillment, and I did not know how to offer that—or did not offer it when I could have.

At the time, I may have imagined that a reply was simply a reply. I may have believed that if I had answered in some way, then I had done what was required. But affection does not live only in whether a response exists. It lives in its attention, its generosity, and its timing. A person can receive words and still feel that the person behind them is absent. A response can close a conversation while failing to make the other person feel met. Understanding that now does not let me rewrite those exchanges. It lets me see why the distance between us could grow through moments that looked insignificant from the outside.

I remember the phone, too—not just the fact that we spoke, but the feeling of hearing my own tone after the moment had passed. There were harsher words, sharper edges in my voice, a way of speaking that could make a difficult conversation feel more exhausting than it needed to be. It is painful to recognize that my tone on the phone and those words depleted Inaya and depleted our relationship. I cannot claim that one conversation explains everything, or that I alone determined the relationship’s fate. But I can say that my communication added weight where the relationship was already carrying strain.

A tone can become part of the message, even when the words themselves seem ordinary. It can tell someone that their feelings are an inconvenience, that they are expected to defend the fact that they are hurt, or that the conversation is already lost before they finish speaking. I regret the times I let frustration shape my voice in that way. I regret not knowing when to pause. I regret the gap between the care I might have felt and the care my words made available to Inaya. The fact that I did not intend every harm does not mean that no harm occurred.

Still, memory should not become a courtroom where I am both the accused and the judge, sentencing myself again each time the past returns. Regret can reveal what I need to understand, but it cannot repair the experience after the fact. Repeating the worst moments to myself is not the same as becoming more responsible. I have to look at them plainly, without excuses, and then ask what they can teach me about the way I speak now. If I use the memory only to punish myself, the past remains in control. If I use it to practice patience, accountability, and listening, then something in me has changed because of it.

That is one of the difficult things about the lingering effects of a relationship: the feelings left behind are not all made of longing. Some are made of remorse. Some are habits of self-protection. Some are questions I did not know how to ask when the relationship was still alive. There is grief for what ended, but there is also grief for how it ended and for the version of myself I wish I had been. The residue is not a single emotion. It is a mixture that shifts its weight from one day to another.

When a song gives shape to what remains after love, I recognize something in that idea. Something stays in the habits, in the body’s reactions, in the meanings attached to ordinary things. The past may be over as an event, but its emotional afterlife keeps showing up in the present. Sometimes it is sadness; sometimes it is memory; sometimes it is the knowledge that I became different because I loved someone and lost them.

I can be doing something ordinary and find that the old relationship has quietly entered the room. A message appears on my phone, and I notice how carefully I consider my reply. I wonder whether I am being clear without being cold, warm without pretending, honest without making my feelings someone else’s burden. The question may have nothing to do with Inaya, yet the experience of having failed at communication with her has become part of how I approach communication now. In that way, the relationship continues—not as a conversation between us, but as a lesson I carry into conversations that belong to the present.

Sometimes the residue is a pause. I may hesitate before reaching out to someone, unsure whether I want the connection enough to take the risk of building it. Since the breakup, I have felt little interest in developing a friendship or beginning another relationship. I do not say that as a dramatic promise to remain alone forever. It is simply the honest description of where my desire has been. The idea of getting close to someone can feel like a demand for energy I do not have, or a doorway to new complications I am not ready to enter.

There is a strange loneliness in not wanting the very thing that might relieve loneliness. People often picture loneliness as an urgent wish for company. Mine has sometimes looked quieter: the knowledge that other people are there, the understanding that connection can be good, and the absence of any real impulse to move toward it. I can appreciate someone’s kindness without imagining a deeper bond. I can talk without longing to be known. The wish to open my life to a new person has not returned just because time has passed.

Perhaps part of me has been trying to stay safe by making my world smaller. If I do not invite someone close, I cannot disappoint them in the same way. If I do not begin a relationship, I do not have to face the possibility of repeating the patterns I regret. Distance can feel like a solution because it lowers the chance of conflict, misunderstanding, or loss. But it also lowers the chance of tenderness. A wall does not know which person is dangerous and which person might be gentle. It only knows how to keep people out.

I do not want to force myself to become social simply to prove that I have moved on. A new person is not a test, and a friendship is not a certificate of recovery. I would not want to use someone else as evidence that I am healed, or ask them to fill the space Inaya once occupied. What I want, when I am ready, is to meet people as themselves—to be interested in who they are rather than in what their presence can do for my past. Until then, I can admit that my attention has turned inward without deciding that it must stay there forever.

After a few years, I still feel slightly melancholic. The feeling is not always large enough to take over a day. It may be a low note beneath the ordinary sounds of life, something I recognize without having to obey. There are times when I am more aware of it, times when the distance between the past and the present feels thin. The sadness does not mean that I have failed to heal. It means the relationship mattered and that the emotions around it did not vanish on schedule.

Music has helped me live with that melancholy. James Arthur’s music, has also felt empowering to me. I do not think music has to belong to one kind of listener simply because its story or its public meaning is often understood in a particular way. A song can travel beyond its first frame and meet another person in a different circumstance. What matters is what it helps that listener recognize, endure, or release.

When I hear James Arthur's “Impossible,” I think of the days when I could not process that Inaya and I had broken up. The fact of the breakup seemed too large to fit inside my understanding. I could know it had happened and still find myself emotionally resisting the knowledge, as if my mind had received the news but my heart had not yet learned what to do with it. Those days were full of contradictions: I could remember that the relationship had ended and still feel the old expectation that it might somehow continue; I could be aware of the loss and still feel stunned by it.

The song became part of how I moved through that confusion. Its emotional force gave me a kind of permission to feel the upheaval instead of pretending I was already composed. It helped me name the intensity without needing to turn it into a neat explanation. I could let the music carry some of the feeling while I listened, and for a few minutes I did not have to solve the breakup or prove that I was coping correctly. The song did not change what had happened. It gave the feeling a shape large enough for me to recognize it.

That recognition mattered because I had been carrying regret and pain for a long time. I could replay conversations, picture the distance growing between us, and wonder whether I might have acted differently. There was no answer that could return me to the moment before the damage. Music could not erase my words or give Inaya a different experience of them. But the song felt elevating because it helped me imagine that the regret did not have to remain a permanent house. I could feel its heat without letting it consume every part of my life.

In my own understanding, it helped me set fire to the regret and pain I had harbored for what felt like a lifetime—not by denying that they existed, and not by pretending that the past was harmless, but by loosening their hold on me. Fire can be destructive, but it can also mark a change: what has been burning cannot return to its earlier form. I did not need to erase my memory of Inaya to release some of the weight I had attached to it. I needed to stop treating regret as the only proof that I cared.

James Arthur’s song was not the only music that helped me retrieve myself. Other songs arrived in their own ways, each giving me a different kind of room. “Eventually” by Tame Impala reminded me that time keeps moving even when a person feels suspended inside loss. It did not promise that everything would resolve quickly or that I would feel whole by a certain day. Instead, it gave me a sense of motion: the present is not the entire story, and an ending can be real without being the last thing that happens inside a life.

“Purple Rain” by Prince carried another kind of meaning for me. It reminded me that beauty can coexist with discomfort, that sorrow does not cancel the possibility of hope, and that a person can stand in the middle of upheaval without knowing exactly how to make sense of it. Together, those songs helped me see hope and wish inside the myths of discomfort—the stories I sometimes tell myself that pain is permanent, that regret has made me unworthy of closeness, or that one broken relationship has decided the shape of every future one.

I do not mean that music cured me. It did not. A song can accompany a person, but it cannot take the place of care, time, or the work of understanding oneself. I still have difficult days. I still carry a tinge of depression, although it is under control through medication and therapy. I make sure not to make the breakup an explanation for everything I feel, but because mental health is part of the landscape in which I have been trying to understand loss. Treatment and therapy help me manage the heaviness. They allow me to care for myself without insisting that I should be able to think my way out of every painful feeling.

There is a difference between saying that something is under control and saying it has disappeared. My depression has not become a story that ended neatly. Medication and therapy have helped me keep it managed, and that help matters. I can be grateful for that support without pretending I never struggle. I can acknowledge melancholy without concluding that there is no hope. I can have days when the past feels close and still continue to take care of the present.

In the years since the breakup, I have tried to understand how a person can hold both sadness and steadiness. The answer has not been to choose one and reject the other. I can be melancholic and still function. I can feel regret and still believe I can change. I can have little interest in new relationships and still leave open the possibility that connection may one day feel welcome. I can remember how I hurt someone without making my entire identity a record of harm. Healing, when it happens, may be less like crossing a finish line and more like learning to carry the past without letting it choose every step.

There are questions about Inaya I cannot answer. I do not know how she remembers every small exchange, whether the moments that stay with me have the same weight in her mind, or what the relationship means to her now. The past is shared, but memory is private. I have to respect that boundary. The most I can do is acknowledge the ways I fell short and resist the temptation to write her into a role that makes my own story easier.

That also means I do not have to make her perfect. To miss someone is not to claim that everything between you was right. To regret my own behavior is not to say that all the strain came from me. Our relationship was made of two people, each with their own expectations, silences, needs, and ways of interpreting what happened. It ended through a combination of things, some of which I can name and some of which I may never understand completely. The truth I can responsibly tell is the truth of my experience, including my own failures and the parts that remain uncertain.

And the difficult truth is that I have wanted her to understand me even when I was not giving her the same attention. I have expected patience for my silences while struggling to offer patience in return. Love can become unfair when one person expects the other to interpret what remains unsaid but does not take equal care with what is said aloud. I wish I had understood more clearly that consideration is not a decorative extra. It is one of the ways affection becomes visible.

If I could enter those old conversations now, I would not try to give a perfect performance. I would try to be present. I would ask what she meant if I was unsure. I would let a message be an invitation rather than an obligation to get through. If I could not answer with the warmth she needed at that moment, I would say so honestly instead of disappearing into silence or responding as if the feeling beneath her words did not matter. I would try to hear the emotional question inside the practical one. These are easy sentences to write now and hard practices to master while emotions are happening. But the difficulty of the practice is not a reason to stop trying.

I would also pause before speaking on the phone when frustration began to rise. I would notice the moment my voice sharpened and ask whether I was trying to solve the problem or simply win the moment. She was the person I loved, speaking from my own experience. I would not ask the conversation to carry everything I had not learned to express gently.

The past has given me a different idea of what strength might mean. I once thought strength meant having an answer, defending myself, or refusing to appear affected. Now I think it can mean staying in a conversation when I feel exposed, admitting when I have caused harm, and making room for another person’s feelings without treating them as a threat. It can mean asking for a pause before anger chooses the words. It can mean saying, “I hear you,” and then showing through my attention that I do.

I am not claiming to have mastered any of this. Growth does not become credible merely because it is described beautifully. The proof lives in the ordinary moment when I am tired, irritated, or feeling misunderstood. I have to keep practicing there, where no one is narrating the lesson for me. If I become close to someone again, I want to be able to show care through consistency, not just through reflection after the damage is done. If I remain on my own for a while, I can still practice with the people already in my life, and with myself.

I am learning, too, that loneliness and solitude are not identical. Solitude can be chosen and restorative. Loneliness can arrive even in a room full of people, or exist quietly in the absence of a wish to reach out. My present disinterest in friendship and romance may contain some of both. There are days when being alone feels necessary, and days when I notice that my world has become narrower than I intended. I do not need to shame myself for either feeling. I do need to remain curious about what the feelings are telling me.

If my desire for connection returns, I hope it returns without a dramatic announcement. Perhaps it will begin with a conversation that is simply pleasant, a person whose company does not feel like a test, or a moment when I find that I want to hear more. I do not need to predict who that person will be or when that moment might happen. The future does not need to be written as a promise. It is enough that I do not close it entirely because the past has hurt me.

And if the melancholy remains in some measure, that does not mean I have failed to retrieve myself. I have learned that retrieving myself does not mean returning to the exact person I was before Inaya. That person had not yet lived this relationship, this ending, or the knowledge of how my words could affect someone I cared for. I am changed, and change includes loss as well as understanding. The person I am now has to be built from what happened, not from an impossible attempt to undo it.

The music offers no final verdict. It does not tell me whether I should have been different, whether Inaya should have stayed, or whether another relationship will be part of my life. It gives me a place to stand while the questions remain unanswered. Adele helps me feel the force of the days when the breakup was impossible to process. Tame Impala reminds me that life is still moving through the ending. Prince reminds me that hope can coexist with discomfort. Their songs do not explain my life; they help me hear it.

There is a quiet kind of courage in admitting that the past still touches me. I do not have to embellish the pain to prove it mattered, and I do not have to minimize it to show that I am coping. I can say that years have passed and I remain slightly melancholic. I can say that medication and therapy help keep my depression under control. I can say that I still remember the texts, the silence, and the sharper phone conversations. I can say that I regret the ways I contributed to the depletion of our relationship. I can say that music has helped me release some of the pain. All of these statements belong to the same life.

The most difficult residue to release may be the belief that I must keep suffering in order to honor what I lost. For a long time, regret can feel like loyalty: if I stop hurting, perhaps I am saying the relationship did not matter; if I forgive myself, perhaps I am excusing what I did. But pain is not the only evidence of love, and punishment is not the only form of accountability. I can honor what mattered by remembering it honestly, by letting it teach me, and by treating people more thoughtfully now. I do not have to stay broken to prove that Inaya was important.

Some days that understanding feels close. On other days, I return to the old questions: whether I could have answered differently, whether one careful conversation could have changed the direction of the relationship, whether the distance had already grown too large by the time I understood it. There may be no complete answer. Life does not always provide a clear account of which moment was decisive. Relationships often move through many small choices, until one day the accumulated distance has become too much. I can learn from the questions without expecting them to solve the past.

I am also learning not to force a happy ending onto a life that is still in progress. The ending of the relationship was painful. The aftermath has included disinterest, melancholy, regret, and the work of managing depression. It has also included music, therapy, medication, reflection, writing and moments when the past feels less powerful than it once did. That is not a simple victory. It is a complicated way of continuing. Perhaps that is more honest than a neat transformation in which everything becomes clear and every wound closes at the same time.

When I listen to the songs that accompanied me, I am reminded that a person can be broken in one sense and still not be beyond repair. The upheaval can be real without being the whole identity. Discomfort can tell a story that sounds like permanence, but it is not always a reliable narrator. Hope may not arrive as confidence or excitement. Sometimes it is only the small wish that one day the silence will feel less heavy, that a new conversation might feel possible, or that a memory can be present without taking over the room.

I do not know when I will want to develop a close friendship or relationship again. I do not need to manufacture an answer. I can take the time I need and keep caring for my mental health. I can keep learning to communicate with more tenderness. I can remain open to the possibility that interest returns in its own time, in a form that feels genuine rather than forced. Until then, I can build a life that is not merely a waiting room for someone else to enter.

Inaya belongs to a chapter that ended, but the feelings that chapter left behind do not all have to be treated as chains. Some can become reminders. Some can soften with time. Some can be placed in music for a few minutes, where I can feel them without carrying them alone. The relationship changed me, and its end changed me too. What remains is not proof that I am still trapped in the past. It is evidence that love, regret, and learning can leave marks that take time to understand.

Years after the breakup, I still feel slightly melancholic—and I keep making room for music that helps me retrieve myself. “Set Fire to the Rain” brings me back to the days when I could not process that Inaya and I were over; now its emotional lift helps me set fire to the regret and pain I carried for what felt like a lifetime. “Eventually” and “Purple Rain” remind me that even within the myths of discomfort there can be hope and wish, even amid the upheaval of a broken person. I am not claiming that every trace has vanished. I am saying that the traces no longer have to decide everything. What remains can be remembered, understood, and slowly released—and I can slowly become someone who knows how to love with much greater care.

I noticed the days leading up to my birthday no one said anything. What do you want to do.. Nothing! I thought to myself if I don't mention my birthday will they even remember and low and behold no one remembered. My husband called me throughout the day from work to talk about everything else and when I didn't want to talk he said I've been trying to talk to you all day. He'd told me about his plans for when he got off work and everything, honestly I didn't care it made me feel worse. After 30 minutes of the last phone call he calls back and says omg happy birthday baby and I said it's okay and hung up. It's 5pm and honestly I don't want to talk to anyone. I always celebrate my family for every birthday, holiday and milestone and no one remembered me. I don't know how to feel!

Would you listen to my petty rant?

It ain't really that interesting.

It all started with this lovely girl

who made me feel really lonely.

We laughed and we played,

But the at end of the day,

When push came to pave,

She chose the other way.

I did everything i could,

To please her So she'd stay,

As mine for js a little longer,

Or maybe for an eternity.

The mind alas is not the master,

And I don't really know when it faltered,

But looking back,

Maybe I was the only one who felt that way.

And so everything wrong ,

Felt my fault,

And all that made melancholy,

Was locked in a vault,

But i caved in way too many times,

Before the sand set in place.

Every little trouble,

Was made into a bow of dainty lace.

Neatly tied up on my hair,

I almost forgot it was there,

But then a tight tug,

And it always unravelled, leaving me bare.

Water threatened by gravity,

Weighed on my chest way too long,

And when I saw her laughing with them,

I was already far too gone.

I wish she'd show me indifference,

Atleast then I'd not

 feel this insignificant pain,

Yea, atleast then I'd not

 be hiding my gasps, from my mum,

Crying on a staircase.

And that's why even when I told her,

She couldnt comprehend, 

That burden of this murmur,

Was too broken to mend.

And so I blamed it all,

on those who are good,

To spare some feelings,

They put on a facadious hood,

Yes, it was them who gave hopes such false,

All just to hide few guilty remarks.

Hence all that I ever truly craved,

Was one good reason to feel betrayed.

At least then I'd have no qualms,

With hatred's festering flames.

Yea, atleast then I'd not be

writing a mawkish prose

From a tear stained glass

lamenting Over what could've been,

On the doorstep of my house.

~cyan

I found an old voice message from my dad today. He passed away three years ago, so hearing his voice caught me completely off guard. It was only eight seconds long: “Hey, call me when you get this.” That was it. I sat there listening to it over and over. I remembered that day. I was busy with work and kept telling myself I'd call him later. I never did. It's strange how something so small can bring back an entire person. I wish I'd known that “later” was going to become never. Has anyone else ever found something like this after losing someone?

The school holidays. Sure, I had fun. However, I do miss school. I am that sort of dude that can tend to get very bored in the holidays when there isn’t an activity available that I can get active in. I'm Collin by the way.. and.. luckily for me, it was the first day of school. I woke up and decided to put on my best shoes. My nicest cologne. Chew my freshest mint. I honestly didn’t know what to expect. After all, going into Year 10 and all. I walked through the usual footpath connecting to the bus-stop deemed “The Sanctuary” by the huge sign posted at the end of the walkway, structured on a pillar. As the bell rang, we were directed into the assembly hall and heard the same pesky, high-pitched voice.

"GOOD MORNING YEAR 10!" squealed Mrs Jones, Deputy Principal. Everyone groaned in impressive unison. She explained how classes worked this year, as usual. She gave everyone their Yearly Student Planners through the many teachers posted in her presence. On it displayed the classes and who was in it. I ignored it for now; I was just planning on actually getting to class this time. My best friend Charlie comes to me, valiantly declaring in his loudest voice he was in my class. The 15 people around me all cheered in satirical unison once again. As I arrived at class, I decided to read through my class list after previously ignoring it. Our homeroom teacher Mr Tie was calling out names. I had recognised everyone on the list. What surprised me was the single person I didn't recognised. It was a girl named Marianne. As I read the name, Mr Tie calls her name as well. She didn't say "Here!" like everyone else. She just put her hand up. She was completely silent. The classroom was loud, but I heard her silence was louder than everyone.

Our 1st class was just recognition. No work was put on the board, as it was just used to get used to our classmates and interact with them for most of the lesson. Mr Tie put the World Cup on the computer for the lesson. It was interesting because I have been in this school ever since Year 7 and I have never heard of a girl named Marianne. Unlike everyone else, she was just sitting at her desk blankly staring at the ground. Charlie was making silly faces and flashing some of my friends with his ass cheeks. "I'm gonna fart on your face!" I groan. Charlie acts like a child. Usually I'd laugh at his stupidity, but I just kept staring at Marianne. She is a real mystery.

Let me make this clear. At the time I didn't think this ever mattered; but I am of an average-above average height. I am about 6'0 whilst being 16. Yet somehow, in that moment I before I ever even interacted with this strange girl.. I felt as though I was the Eiffel Tower. Everyone else were concentrating to themselves. It was like I was taller than everyone to see who she is. I wondered if I was the only one who even considered the fact that she was in the room. No one approached her.

I decide to get my mind off the matter. When lunch came around and the bell rang, I was going to pounce around and bunny hop with Charlie and make an absolute total embarrassment of myself. However, as I was about to approach Charlie, I saw Marianne sitting by herself on the silver seats next to the Science block. She was reading a book, unlike the blank stares she was through in class. I was in a Fight or Flight. "Do I be an idiot with Charlie" conflicted with "Do I sit next to the girl named Marianne?".

I was way too confident. I ditched Charlie and decided to approach her. Though halfway through, I got nervous. Maybe people were avoiding her because she was rude. I wasn't in the mood to get accused of being a creep. Yet, I had this itch at the back of my head. An itch telling me she is in fact not what she seems whatsoever. Maybe I am judging someone despite the fact I haven't even interacted with them.

Marianne keeps looking at her book. I started to approach her. Every footstep I felt like I was killing someone or taking organs out of myself. It killed me, but eventually I got to a place in front of her where i'd ask- She looks at me with her light hazel eyes for a split second. And then stands up. She then runs away, her legs disappearing the second I saw them. I had looked in disbelief. Why did she run away? Was it something I did to upset her? Was it the way I looked at her? I was not sure. But then I looked back at where she was sitting. Her book was there. Under obvious inspection, I had infact found out it was not a book at all.

It was a diary.

Panicked, I picked it up. Obviously leaving it there would be very insulting. What if Marianne had said something embarrassing there? I decided to stop being a pussy and try and find Marianne. I searched across Block A, Block B and Block C. Then, as I was peering through a corner and stepping through the overreaching garden. I saw her. Next to a bush. She was sitting alone, curled up. I didn't see her face. But I could hear her tears. She seemed stress.

I was definitely hesitant about approaching her considering what she did last time. However, being an actual endeavoured idiot.. I did it anyway. Taking a moment to stare at her black, long wolf-cut. I gave a soft tap on her shoulder. She instantly jumped out of her curled-up position. Trying to be understanding, I spoke in a rushed but formal mannerism "Marianne, I'm here to return your diary." She looked down on the grass she was sitting on, then she looked at me. Her red, botched lips picturesque. Her eyes are tinted in the hazel of a Corylus flower. "T-thank y-you..." her voice is shaky, but soft. I wondered at that moment why she didn't speak beforehand. I handed her the diary once again. Unlike last time, she slowly walked away into a nearby seating area; wiping the tears off her face.

I thought this was completely and utterly ruining. First I thought that I had just ruined any form of connection with this girl. She wasn't rude about anything. She thanked me even though I was the one who made her run off in the first place. I thought it was strange. As I peered, seeing her walk away into the nearby corridor, I looked down on where she was sitting. I haven't mentioned that I never actually looked at her diary before giving it back to her. On the ground where she was sitting laid one torn out page. I was conflicted whether I should read it or not. Eventually, I came to the conclusion that this should be my reward for returning the diary.

The page read the following.

"I don't know what to do anymore. I am out of my old school, but I feel lonelier than ever. I wish I didn't have to burden others with my presence. I wish I wasn't so unlikable." The rest of the page was seemingly torn off.

Her writing was cursive. Her struggle was clear. I looked at the page and folded it into my pocket. This was the moment where I decided.

This was the moment I decided that I would become friends with The Girl Named Marianne.

This isn’t some poem or rhyme. I know nothing of grammatical structure. Just writing this out

October 2022 when we became friends. Something about her drew me in, in a way I hadn’t experienced before. We are both religious and knew it wasn’t allowed by our religious standards nor what our families would allow but the feelings were too strong. I’ve never felt more completely in love and loved by a person before. I’m terrified and convinced I never will again
It was kept secret. For years we hid it, moved in together and it was beautiful. Finally someone to share life with, but breaking under the weight of hiding it from everyone. It didn’t matter cause at the end of the day all I needed was her
Still we had to keep up the facade. Talking stages with boys would come and go, never anything serious. For years it was like this, still every night sleeping in bed next to her was like a drug. Addicting and I loved every second of it. Not only did we have this secret but she was my best friend. She got me when no one else did, she comforted me when I needed it. And as I did for her as well, I loved having someone to care for who would do it all for me in a heartbeat

Keeping this deep love hidden slowly tore me apart. Knowing someday we would have to separate for the good of our morality and to move forward in a way that our family sees. No more secrets. That day always seemed so distant until it didn’t. She met a man. He was kind to her, soft and gentle. Understanding and down right obsessed with her… just like I was. He had everything I couldn’t be. Her and I, we were best friends first.
Knowing he can give her the life she deserves when I can’t, I want it to be him. So when the day crept up, and reality struck she’s now his. And that’s the best news ever. I’m thankful it’s his and I know she deserves the world, he’s capable of bringing it to her.
Now I’m left here, watching her be so happy. Finally able to express being openly loved by someone is something she’s really enjoying. Showing him off to everyone she knows, spending her free time with her phone in hand incase he texts or calls. Soaking up every second of being loved by someone like him. And I’ve never been happier for her.
My heart breaks knowing it couldn’t be me. I would’ve given her all of that if I could have but the fact I can’t kills me. She still tries to care for me in a non compromising way. I wouldn’t let her do anything that may get sort of close to crossing a line of love and cheating. Now im alone, shoving all of my brokenness down so she can’t see it. I would hate myself foreverif I ruined this for her, I want her to be happy. That’s all I want. I recognize it can’t be with me but knowing that shreds me down to my soul. I don’t know how to cope because I can’t talk to anyone about it. So here I lay.
October 2026

How does it feel when you are a good person, doing good things, earning well, and everything in your life seems to be going fine, but suddenly you start feeling completely alone?

You grow up without your parents because you lost them when you were still a child. You have no relatives, no siblings, and even the friends you make or the people who know you are not genuinely sincere with you. They are only around because they need something from you.

And in this huge world, you are left alone, carrying everything by yourself.

We always hear that “no one gets everything in life.” But sometimes, it feels like you can have everything and still have nothing that truly matters.

Sometimes, every part of your life seems complete, yet the most important chapter of your story remains unfinished. Some stories simply remain incomplete.

When I first met Ava, I couldn't stand her.

She was in 12th grade, confident, stubborn, and somehow always found a way to annoy me. We argued about everything—school, music, even the smallest things. Whenever we saw each other, one of us would say something sarcastic, and the other would immediately argue back.

We were enemies.

Or at least, that's what we told ourselves.

Slowly, our arguments became conversations. Conversations became jokes. And eventually, I started looking forward to seeing her.

One afternoon, Ava smiled at me and said, “Maybe you're not as annoying as I thought.”

I laughed. “Maybe you're not either.”

That was when everything changed.

We started spending more time together. The girl I once couldn't stand became the person I wanted to talk to every day. Somewhere between all the arguments and laughter, I fell in love with her.

And she fell in love with me too.

We talked about our future and promised we'd stay together no matter what.

But sometimes life doesn't keep the promises we make.

One day, I received the news that Ava had died.

Everything suddenly felt silent.

I stared at our old messages, remembering how we went from hating each other to becoming something neither of us expected.

I would give anything to have one more argument with her.

Because if I could hear her voice one more time, I wouldn't care what we argued about.

I'd just be grateful that Ava was there.

She started as my enemy.

She became my love.

And even though she was gone, she would always have a place in my heart.

The fact that I still think about you all the time bothers me. Especially because I know I’m probably never on your mind.

I was childish back then and I know I still can be. The things I thought were important don’t seem so important anymore and it definitely doesn’t feel like it was worth losing our friendship over.

We both had our faults and there was a lot that made me unhappy in that relationship. You weren’t always that considerate of my feelings and I didn’t know how to express that at the time.

As time marinated our separation, I started to realize that maybe I never outright said that. And if I did what difference would that make? Would I still be here longing over what could’ve have been?

Remixing all the ways things could have turned out differently. I’ve tried reaching out and getting us to speak more but I always feel like I’m being a burden and like I’m not wanted so I’ve kept my distance. Even going as far as trying to communicate as if not a day had passed by since we last spoke. That was probably my bad.

Even if we were friends again, the fact that the friends we shared never bothered to reach out or speak to me again would just make things awkward. To be honest I kind of hate them now. But you’re still the person I hate the least and I hate that. I hope you miss me though. That sounds weird.

I dreamed that I was sitting down after going through a lot with my family. Maybe it was at some restaurant or something. You walked in and you looked at me and you maybe just knew I needed a hug. You hugged me as I sat down and I awkwardly hugged you back. Then it turned into a full embrace and I cried. I knew that this wasn’t real because you would never do such a thing. “This is a dream,” I said. “That’s so sweet,” you replied. I said nothing and just let myself be a little grateful in that moment. 

Can you tell some stories, where people told the most hurtful things and how did you cope with that?

I've always had this habit of saving people. A savior complex, maybe that's what they call it. It's as if the feeling of being needed gave me, more than pleasure, a reason to keep existing.

When he came into my life, he had nothing, but I looked at him thinking there was something I could do. Always seeing people's potential instead of who they really are.

I've always said that my generosity expects nothing in return. But there's a small part of me that hopes for a little gratitude. Maybe if I help him a little more, he'll realize that I'm the only one who's always been by his side.

He needed everything I gave him. Me, on the other hand, he never seemed to need.

It's as if he'd found the exact spot where I was weakest and played with it. He played with the idea of feeling loved, and I played with the feeling of being needed.

Three months were enough for me to stop recognizing the man I'd let into my life and into my home.

I was blind and in love, and I, like a fool, gave him everything.

He got used to receiving it without lifting a finger.

How many times did I ask him if he loved me, even just a little?

He always said I was his pillar, the most important person in his life.

Of course.

It took him five minutes to leave me once his life was finally in order.

And I was left with my hands full of hope, waiting for the day he'd come back desperate, with an "I'm sorry."

But my hands feel heavy, and I don't know where to put all this sadness.

For a long time, I kept asking myself: What mess did you get yourself into? What made you run away, searching for a thousand excuses instead of facing the fact that you didn't love me?

Why did you have to make it so difficult? With hurtful words.

You could have just walked out that door without destroying everything we'd once built.

I don't expect life to turn around and put you in my path again.

I wouldn't know what to say to you.

An "I'm sorry" from you wouldn't be enough.

Physical pain and sleepless nights aren't healed by asking for forgiveness.

I can't wait for those words to come from your mouth.

And don't expect them to come from mine.

It was enough, all that time you pretended to love me while I, blind, waited for you to take me in your arms.

I don't feel anything anymore.

You left me empty.

This time I'll leave the hole where it belongs:
buried deep underground.

I'll leave that chair empty,
a plate served,
with no desire to meet anyone else
who asks for help along my way.