You must believe that in my eyes you will always remain beautiful and that I may continue to love you long after you have gone,  irrespective of response or reciprocity. But also believe that in this love needn’t be hurt, as I am discovering slowly now.

I write to ask for time, to allow me to unlearn and unlove, if not undo? Let me have time to retreat, retread and retrace those steps? Time to break down and rebuild? Time to walk backwards to find that fork in the road where we went so wrong and then, take the other path?

Give me time to extend my arms towards you, ready and willing to accept and embrace the us we must become now; the us we must grow into. But will you give me this and still find the courage to hold my hand through it all? There are no promises, no black and white. Only a bright searing beauty that is at once punishment and reward. This is truth.

In exchange, take from me all you want. Leave all you care nothing for and forget everything you have known to be true of  me before right now.  It was hope, you liked to think, that you saw in the eyes of the moon-faced girl that looked back at you from behind a sheet of glass on the shelf.

In this renewed freedom let me show you what you once saw. For one last time, let me show you who I am.