A month ago, I thought of killing myself. I begged my body not to wake up when I would sleep. My heart was pounding as I realized what was happening all along. Who were you, I thought, after knowing everything. Who were you sleeping in my bed? Why is this happening to me, why me, I asked like a prayer. People say you don't destroy the one you love, yet love defaces; it strips away everything and leaves only the essence, naked and bare. People say it was not love, yet loneliness. But there are no technicalities in love. I planned to propose to you two years after passing the bar. Now I just plan getting through the day, silencing my heart through work and writing. I've written what I wanted in a partner, a short list, two traits. I wanted to have children with you. I think I'll be a good father and husband (or I'll try my best to be). Who is the For Whom now? What can I hold on to? C gave me a card on my birthday saying: "Everyday may not be good... But there is something good in everyday." It is good I plan to live. Every time my heart clamors, like a burn victim being bathed, I wish for time to move faster, for me to be okay. I want to let go. I keep on asking the vengeance and hatred and anger within me to let go of me, although I know it is me holding on to them. For whom will I risk myself now, into whose arms will I place my dreams again, hoping I will not again and again and again be thrown out into the street? I've become wary of hospitals, I dread the thought of getting sick. It is not fair. I see why your mother is so angry, because she loved your father so much. She could have studied abroad. I could have graduated and taken the bar this year. But we have to live with the choices we make. At least twice a day, while studying at home, out of nowhere I punch the table asking why. Everyday is cleansing, whether I want to or not. Everyday I am angry and I wonder if I've made the right choice, who you are with, where are you. I study out and you are a ghost or a phobia. When I study out, I look at the parked cars. I did not know I would be this fragile. I did not know you could hurt me this way. I need to stop asking myself what is wrong with me, where did I fall short, what do I lack, was it this or that, did I love too much or too little. We weren't built on lies, deception, manipulation, but trust and honesty. I thought those were the things we would never break, and it's already hard enough to find those in people, much less build a life on them. T told me there's nothing I could do if that's how I was. I try not to listen to those parts of myself anymore, yet the occasional sliver gets by when I study out, and I make a tight fist which my friends have noticed me making more often. I'm beginning to forget your face, the reasons you used, that which you told me as I was drunk and you were embracing me, in front of P when we slept over her place. I tucked you in that night. I drove you to work that morning. "It's just a text," you tell me after I helped you patch up your sister's foot, yet you texted him back like I wasn't even there the whole time. Why are you letting this happen to us, I wanted to ask you, was this even the first time you've done this to me? I'm beginning to forget you and I'm afraid. I want to and don't want to, but I have to.