The first days were the worst.
I didn't get out of my bed morning or night
the sky seemed to meld into passing golds and purples.

The next week my best friend came over.
He brought chocolate brownie ice cream but it seemed plain becasue you had introduced me to cookie dough and that was my favorite flavor now.
We watched movies and he let me pick which ones.

Three weeks have passed and I’ve finally pulled our pictures from the frames.
We took them into the woods and burned them under an oak tree.
I saw our past in the ashes and tried my best no to reach for the burning cinders.
When we got back home the walls felt empty so he help paint new beautiful things to replace the bleak white you left there.
Now color lives in my home again.

A month and a half are gone and I still think of you.
When I do he takes me for walks and we feed the ducks at the lake by my house.
We go and get ice cream after, he said i should try mint chocolate chip.
Its my favorite flavor now.

7 months are gone and I don't think of you much these days.
If I saw you on the street I think I’d say hi or how are you doing.
Or maybe I wouldn’t say anything at all.
Maybe I would call my best friend and talk to him so I wouldn’t have to waste a word on you.
He said you don't deserve them

A year.
It has been a whole year and when I look back on what we had i don’t feel much at all.
Now there is just a lonely hum in the back of my brain where your name used to be.
So instead I think of my best friend.
I think of the way his fingers held my hands when they could match earth quakes and I think of the sleep he lost, and how it doubled the sleep I lost, and how you probably never missed a wink.
I think I should call him and thank him again.

5 years today you texted me and said we weren't working out and that you didn’t want to see me anymore.
5 years ago I wanted to do say so many things to you.
How you hurt me, how you broke me, how i loved you.
But now it’s different.
Now I would thank you.
Because now I know sometimes to see what love is you have to be shown what love isn't. And love isn't you. Love is long walks, watching the dead poets society and pretending you're crying because the movie is sad. Love is loud music and crappy art and staying in on a Sunday. Love is mint chocolate chip ice cream.
So from me to you from the bottom of my heart
Thank you.

Honey.