I lived in the mountains after you. To this day, I still don’t know who I was running from. You, me, us. Either way, I needed to be alone for a while. We needed to be our own people. I needed to grow outside of your fence. Time is a great healer, so they say, and it passes differently up here, in the mountains. Almost in slow motion.

The imperceptible passing of time is marked only by the moon. She, always beautiful, rises every night; but in different phases, different moods, different dresses. Some nights, she is shy, revealing only half of herself to me up here in the mountains, and I respect her shyness, only stealing glances at her when I believe she isn’t looking. Other nights, it’s as if the sun has held up a looking glass to her, and she has realised the entirety of her beauty. On these nights, the moon shows herself in full, naked and bright, watching over me as I silently sob to her over you. We keep each other company, the moon and I, just like you and I used to.

During the day, I sit here and let the dust gather on us. I’m getting better. Gradually. I’m able to let a thick layer of dust settle, the gleam of the mountains and the singing of the birds warming my heart as I do endless tasks to keep my mind busy. Each time, the final layer of dust has almost settled, my heart has almost stopped racing, my mind has almost stopped whispering your name. And then night falls. At night, I crumple and disturb the dust with my tears, creating spots in the surface which the moonlight fills with her sympathy. And then it all begins again, after another morning waking up to no you.

Eventually I’ll be okay. I do know this. But it’s hard to remember that when every day is a marathon without the scent of your hair, the touch of your hand, the taste of your lips. And I can’t forgive you yet. I haven’t even figured out how to forgive myself, let alone you. You hurt me more than anyone I have ever known and in these mountains that thought is sometimes the only thing that fills all this empty space. But most of the time, for now, the trees act as my blanket, the mountains my protectors, the flowers my serenity. And I can live like that. For now.

Besides, I eventually would have ended up here anyway, as you threw me so far from myself I’ve had to hunt everywhere to find myself ever since.