oh god, you don't know how glad i was to see we hadn't disappeared
over the summer at all, that we were still hadn't changed from the
year before, not one bit.

it was wonderful to be back, in our playful banter and inside jokes

laughing during math, pointing out little things like, did you know
that she dyed her hair, and what's your schedule like?

imagine my surprise when you began to ebb away, letting the tide sweep
you out, with its pretty breeze and playful dolphins.

you took on the burden of being the class dunce, classroom idiot.

you fooled them all.

oh, they all loved you to bits, those cheerleaders and those football
players. because you were strange, strange, thinking out of the box
and being both funny and serious at times.

you dense, charming, contradictory idiot.

i sit almost alone now, because i have friends other than you now, and
look, see? i don't need you. i can be fine. i'll be fine. there's
sarah and she's new. you know her, don't you? she likes you alot,
"princess". talks about you now a bit more than i do. a bit less than i
did.

sarah spins stories as vivid and vibrant as color and enchants
everyone with them. even you, i think. she is interesting, and she'll
be here next year, but i'm always scared of getting closer to her
because what if she and i end up like me and you?

jocelyn's the same. devious and as cunning as ever and she thinks
you're disgusting. maham still talks at the speed of light. and still
stresses more than i do over the tiniest things turning my brain into
frazzled ends of annoyance.

and i am the same as you left me. broken and mature and contradictory
and quiet and loud and strange enough to be normal. like you.

like you, that's all i ever did, wasn't it?

oh, this is just a strand of my consciousness and you're in it, you
almost always are. i barely think of you anymore, but it still hurts,
it always will. your name makes me think of days i cried and nostalgia
and depression. i will never see ferrets without thinking of you.

of you, with your weird smile and your eyes and your twin and oh, the
silly mistakes a child makes when thinking they're in love and that
it'll all work put because fairytales always do.

i wasted my worst and my best on you and you let me go.

thank you for doing that, for leaving me, for deserting me. i can't
thank you enough.

it's better this way. we wouldn't last, wouldn't have started anyway.

we were doomed before we began and i was broken trying to love a wild
creature.

but unrequited love is like a dandelion. it pops out of nowhere. you
don't need to care for it, but it'll still grow. and it grows
anywhere, in the cracks between a sidewalk, even. my love for you
won't grow, but it won't ever die either, it'll just be a weed
existing in the shadows of my heart, one of the things i'll just never
let go of.

i made a wish today and it's us, us going our separate ways gently.
both of us. even though you never knew, you were a big part of this
whole shiitake mushroom, you know?

someday i want to find real love, the kind that's like a rose. you
have to plant it and prune it and cultivate it carefully. you can't
leave it alone. it's a scary thing, to watch a rose die.

don't worry, i loved you like a dandelion grows, but i've blown my
wish and it's floating off now.

i wish you learn to let go as i have done.