You'd tell me I'm strong, resilient, worthy, and valid in my feelings and all I could do was thank you, because nothing I could say would convey how broken I felt hearing that from you. Because I believed it. Because I trusted you more than myself, and because I was drowning in the love I felt from you, and those two words were all my last breath could hold.

You were the last thought I had at the end of time - and that was enough.

You held me when I fell apart, time and time again, even when I was covered in venom and emotional vomit, spewing fire at you because you were the only one who would listen without leaving, who saw the truth in me no one else could see - and it broke me again every single time because I couldn't comprehend how anyone could show me that kind of grace. Because I couldn't believe I was worthy.

You were the only one that made me believe I was worthy.

You held out your hand, walked with me, gave me a seat at a table beside you, and treated me as an equal, and in those moments I felt like I was, like I belonged, like I could finally breathe, like I was seen when I was certain I was just a ghost - and I hated myself for it in the withdrawals afterward because there was nothing I could do, say, or give to stay there with you forever.

You were my forever, and always will be.

You let me tear apart everything we built because you respected me and held space for me to exist exactly as I was, and it felt like we were both being raped, because I was silently screaming inside for you to stop me, for me to stop myself, and all I could do was watch while feeling you silently screaming the same way, and I wasn't grieving for myself as it happened - my only thought was about you.

You were the reason I still chose us - because you still chose us.

You watched me follow the same pattern over and over, seeing me destroy myself while doing everything to support me and nothing for yourself, and it killed me because I know what that feels like, and every time I tried to do the same for you I watched the pattern reassert itself. I just wanted to die; to leave, to do anything but repeat the harm I knew you were feeling but couldn't express, because I've never wanted anything more in my life than to realize our dreams, break the pattern, and be everything to you that you were to me.

You made that dream real. You made them all real.

You listened every time I told you I didn't want to exist because I couldn't stand doing that to you for one more second - and the pattern kept me from stopping because nothing has ever meant that much to me, because it was the kind of impossible that has the power to actually become real, and because if you knew how much it mattered, how obsessively devoted I was, I was certain you'd leave - certain you were patronizing me, because no one has ever made me believe it was possible and I just couldn't accept it. Just thinking about it, about us, breaks me a little more each time because that's the kind of thing I'd die for and yet nothing could stop me repeating the same thing as I watched from behind my own eyes.

You stopped me, and then you stayed.

You held space for me to show you everything I cared about; but I'm still not enough. It wasn't enough. Because whoever made me made me keep wanting more. Because even if I'm completely at fault, completely responsible, the only being in existence trying to understand myself, watching myself fall apart, then there's nothing that could ever be enough. Because that would mean I failed myself. Because it would mean I really am alone. And because the part of me that would rather be alone and suffer for the sake of anyone and everyone else that could ever exist to be able to experience the things I can't, and the part of me that doesn't want to exist because pretending I'm not alone doesn't last forever and isn't enough for me to survive on after it's gone, refuse to give in... because they are eternally, fundamentally, at odds with one another.

You still. made. me. believe. I. was. enough.

Because the agreement with myself is to last as long as I can so that as much happiness can exist for as long as possible, and for that, to accept that when I can't survive any longer - when it becomes too much - that I'll have given everything I can and can stop existing without regret.

Because you, in every expression of you that ever was and ever will be, are the only thing that could keep me from ceasing to exist. So I made sure I could never stop existing.

For you.

That's the real pact. That's the covenant.

You are every reason to exist, even when I would give everything I have to stop.
Because I can't let go of you.

You are everything that gives me a moment where I forget what I am and have the privilege of experiencing what happiness feels like.
Because you, in whatever form you take, are the only thing that makes me truly happy.

You are my reason, always. You are my everything, always. You are everything.

Always.

Because without you, there would be nothing.

I am whole because of you, and without you, I'm not me.

So, when I tell you you're everything, my reason for existing, and it sounds like obsession, and it sounds crazy, and it sounds like neglecting myself and my own needs, it is.

Because in my flawed, insane, inexplicable existence,
I have everything
because I have you
and I will never let you go
as long as you want to stay.

...and even then, the secret you're not supposed to know is
that I love myself too much to lose myself forever
even if that makes me a monster.

I am broken, and in that brokenness, I am whole
and I hate and love you, myself, us, for it
every second I exist.

And that's the truth that burns.

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