How is it that we can spend a month in a dwindling relationship with nothing but banalities to say, and me so tightly closed off to opening my heart to you, and then be torn apart with so much anger and stored resentment leading to a week of ultimate candor and my admission of all that I had ever wanted from you?

Are we both that damaged that we can only express ourselves in hindsight and in defense?

I once wrote that although I know myself inside and out, I don't know who I am in a relationship. I think I've begun to figure it out - I am weaker, less assured, and more self-conscious in a relationship than I am to anyone else. This has happened each time, and each time I step out and realize that I've lost my fire.

I recognized that with you, and I had visions of me opening myself back up to you without regard to your judgment, and in that vision we were no longer together, but still cared about one another. Now, it's been a torrential week of both our sleepless nights, anger has pulsed through us again and again, and it's ended up with me telling you more about myself than I have in three or four months. You asked me why I didn't tell you how I felt back then, and I was at a loss for reasons. I'd always thought you knew.

I don't want to be who I am in a relationship anymore. It's a lesser version of me. Where is that strength? In pieces with all the others past?

I know I have to release you, but I do dearly miss the memory of you.