I think your image will be burned into my mind forever. There is something about those blue eyes that seemed to peer into my soul, that black hair that reminded me of a starless night, those tan arms that had held me together on nights I was sure to fall apart, that I could not let myself forget. I say let myself but with you it was never a choice. With you I had no say, my heart was captivated and when you were around it seemed to have a mind of its own. You gave me a feeling I never knew existed. Part of me will always love you for that, part of me will always hate you for the same reason. When I think of us I think of a sunny beach on an island in the middle of nowhere. The only noise would be the wind blowing through to palm trees, the only destruction would be the waves crashing on the shore. For a long time this is what I compared us to, a beautiful beach only inhabited by 2. But beautiful beaches are only beautiful for so long, then they are not beautiful anymore. That is exactly what happened with us. We were beautiful, you were beautiful and I was beautiful and together we made a masterpiece, an exquisite fire that burned in both of our hearts. That's the thing about fire though, it burns and burns until it fizzles out unless you had kindling and then it burns and burns and then you add some gasoline and it explodes. The kindling in our fire could have been your words, they were once sweet but turned harsh. Or maybe the kindling was my inability to believe you could do wrong, I always made excuses for you. The gasoline might have been the way my love for you made me stop loving myself, or maybe it was the way I drew your temper out of you like a flame draws a moth to it's immediate death. The moth never wins and neither did I. Regardless of what we added to the fire it was a fire no longer. Now all that was left was a pile of ash, remnants of the explosion that our passion created. Now out beautiful island smells like smoke and no matter how many flowers I hold to my nose I think the smell will always be there lingering in the air. Our beach is unrecognizable now. The soft and is now rough and course, it has been stopped over to many times. The once beautiful crystal blue ocean resembles black sludge now and is no help in scrubbing away your touch. The palm trees that used to sway to the beat of the wind are wilted, drooping over, no coconuts to be found. The breeze that sang to us all day long now screeches in protest, I think it hates you a much as i'm trying to. One might as why I choose to remain on this island when its dead and dying and that is because we mirror each other. She cries and I cry. She turns cold and uninviting and I begin to do the same thing. My safe haven is gone, replaced with a shell of her former self. Thanks to you I may never swim again, I may never drink the milk of a coconut without tasting your lies, So why do I stay? Why do I continue to put myself through this? Because that is what love does to you. It breaks you apart until you are so far gone, so deeply invested into the other person that you can't stand on your own 2 feet anymore. But just because I can walk doesn't mean I can't crawl. And I will. This is me crawling away from you, soon I will be able to walk, and after that I will run. Far far away from you. Because the end of loving you is the beginning of loving myself, and for that I am grateful. So I am saying goodbye to you, saying goodbye to this beach. Because where I once had a beautiful utopia, I now have a sad, desolate island and I refuse to be sad anymore.