My whole life,

I have always been running.

Running ahead,

Straight to whatever life gives me.

Always running, running, running,

Chasing change.

I run towards tomorrow,

Just to get there.

I’m not sure why, exactly.

It’s exciting?

It’s something to do?

It lets me escape whenever I find myself somewhere I don’t like.

That comes with a bad habit of leaving people behind.

To all those people… I’m sorry.

You deserved better than that.

And I still get that urge sometimes.

To just drop communication and let someone go,

Just because I’ve made mistakes with them,

Or because I just can’t handle the responsibility of friendship.

Sometimes I think about fleeing a person,

An activity,

Someone or something I love,

Just because it’s stressful.

But I’m fighting that,

And I’m doing better.

I know I am.

I think I’ve been running up a hill.

Maybe that’s why it’s been so tiring.

Maybe it’s been my legs telling me to slow down,

To stop running.

I just walk it off.

I keep running forward,

Faster and faster,

Running up a hill I never realized was increasing.

But it is, I realize now.

Looking back,

I was so much higher than where I started.

“The higher you climb,

The farther you fall.”

I should have known.

And I think that hill,

MY hill,

Is who I am.

I am completely different two years ago,

When I first realized I was running.

Back then, I was selfish and manipulative,

Arrogant and cruel.

Everything I now hate.

That girl,

I’m ashamed of her.

But as I was running up my hill

(More of a mountain, really),

I became higher,

Nicer,

Kinder,

Friendlier,

More considerate,

More caring,

More expressive,

More encouraging,

More loving.

I became better.

I measure time by school years.

Two years ago,

I was horrible

And I hate that girl.

The version of me last year was somehow better.

I kept running up my mountain,

Kept being raising myself higher and higher,

And I really was better.

I had friends, I had people I cared about.

And I was happy with myself.

The start of this school year was even better.

I had more friends than ever before

(And I know I’m not measured in friends, but I’ve always had trouble making them),

I put more effort into grades and responsibilities than ever before,

I was a better person than I’d ever been before.

And…

I was happy.

Really, honestly, happy.

And then I met you.

I never saw the mountain end.

Never realized when I threw myself off the edge.

And at first it wasn’t wrong,

Wasn’t a problem.

I grew wings and learned to fly.

You pushed me higher,

And for once,

I stopped running.

You were wind in my wings,

Letting me soar higher than a mountain could ever bring me.

I was the happiest I’ve ever been,

And I loved everything around me.

I cared for you especially,

But also my friends

Yes, I fell for you,

But I fell upwards,

Into the sky.

And then…

And then you were gone.

You were gone but sitting next to me.

There was no wind,

Nothing to push me upward.

It was only empty air,

And I was miles above the ground,

All alone.

I never looked down, though,

And I’m glad I didn’t.

I tried to flap my wings,

Tried to hold myself up so high,

But I couldn’t.

No one is meant to be that happy for long.

I couldn’t fly,

But I learned to glide.

I learned to keep myself in the air,

Because I knew the drop would kill me.

You’d taken my mountain,

And I let you without a second thought.

But gliding could only do so much for me.

I was sinking and I knew it.

I was floating in the air,

Waiting for you to come back,

Waiting for us to be reborn.

I waited for the magic we’d first found to return.

I should never have trusted magic,

Unpredictable and chaotic,

Over my mountain.

I missed the feel of earth beneath my feet.

But by then I was hanging,

Suspended in open air.

I was unmoving,

Slowly drifting to the ground.

I needed you,

But you weren’t there anymore.

It wasn’t even that you were distant,

It was just that what we’d had was… off.

You were right beside me, yet I was on my own.

I would have been fine,

But I’d left my mountain far behind.

I couldn’t run anymore,

I was stranded in a place I didn’t know.

Why had you left?

What happened?

Had I done something?

I wondered and worried,

Until, suddenly, you returned.

“You” returned.

I don’t know who it was that came back to me,

But it was certainly not the girl I had fallen in love with.

Those wings you taught me to use?

You tore them to shreds.

You tore me to shreds.

Picking apart every weakness I so shamelessly shared,

Attacking every flaw you could see.

And I let you.

Even as I dropped,

Even as you ripped me from the sky you once taught me to love,

I

Let

You.

I let you, and I loved you.

I had so much hope,

Hope that you would change,

Hope that I would escape,

Hope that someday I could be enough.

But you kept tearing me apart.

You lashed out for no reason,

Telling me you hated me,

Showing everything I hated about myself.

In the few months I have known you,

You have given me more happiness than I could have dreamed of,

And given me more pain than I could have ever imagined.

I don’t know why.

Maybe it was because I’m stupid.

I was stupidly waiting for something better.

Maybe it was because I just sat there and took it.

Maybe it was because you knew I would still love you,

Still care for you,

No matter how much you hurt me.

So I plummeted.

From my place in the sky,

I dropped miles,

Worlds,

Lifetimes.

Hurtling through the air,

Knowing I would lose everything when I landed.

It’s terrifying.

Have you ever felt that?

Have you ever felt so afraid and wounded and worthless,

All from the perosn who is supposed to LOVE YOU?

I wonder, have you ever felt that?

When I saw a shape below me,

I closed my eyes,

Taking my last breaths.

I thought that would be the end.

I thought I would hit the ground,

And every shattered piece of who I was would cut me up until I fell apart,

Broken into so many parts I didn’t feel any of them.

I thought it would all be over after I hit.

But by some twist of fate,

Either cruel or merciful,

I survived.

When I opened my eyes,

I was hanging on the edge.

Cruel, I realized.

Fate was cruel.

Because that edge I was clinging to,

I recognized it.

It was my mountain.

My mountain,

That had kept me safe for so long,

That had created the beautiful person you’d been working to tear down.

I knew that if I just pulled myself over that edge

I could climb away,

Go back to running.

I could leave you and everything we’d been through behind.

But I was just

Not

Strong

Enough.

(Which, coincidentally, was something you were relentless about insulting me for.)

I couldn’t bring myself to leave you behind.

So I clung to the edge of my mountain,

The one I had run so far on.

I was losing hope, fast.

My arms were shaking as I prayed I wouldn’t fall.

You continued breaking me,

Hurting everything you could.

And still,

I could not bear to leave you.

And then-

Then the mountain,

Or rather, the edge I was holding onto,

Crumbled.

I should have known.

I should have known that a mountain made of hope would never make it.

I should have known that hope and dreams and faith would never be enough.

I have fallen,

Fallen down and down.

I am still sinking lower and lower,

Lower than I’ve been in a long time.

And now…

Now I am angry, and volatile, and lonely, and empty, and sad, and afraid.

I am lazy,

And I just can’t bring myself to care.

I am the worthless girl you once made me believe.

And now is when I finally let you go.

I cannot love a person who has done so much.

You try to tell me you’ve changed,

And I know that’s true.

But why can’t you see I’ve changed too?

Why can’t you see I have nothing left?

Why can’t you see it doesn’t matter what you do,

It’s too late.

There is no more running.