Silent Goodbye

I thought of you yesterday, while I took down my show. You're there, in everything that I printed. It felt like celebrating you, it felt like celebrating us- or what I thought we were. I pulled the photos off the walls and said goodbye, to the person I was the day before, to the person I was last year. To the person I was a minute ago, even. I said goodbye to you, looking in your eyes as I peeled you away and I apologized to you, silently, for all the things I did wrong. I forgave both myself and you for our mistakes. I didn't even bother to think about them all, or point fingers. It doesn't matter. What matters is that I let you go, and I forgive myself. That I move forward with the person I want to be.

I spent a lot of time thinking you were the best thing I'd ever found, the most amazing person in the world - that if I couldn't keep you in my life, I wasn't anything. Something in me put you on a pedestal, above me, above everything. I was wrong. Not that you aren't amazing, but that I am any less amazing. I told you once that I will love you forever, and I will. I told you that I wanted you in my life always, and you will be- even if we don't talk. You are a sister to me, a heart sister. My soul will always recognize you as the lovely being you are. I will cary you within my work, a part of me, a part of my experiences.