I was surprised in writing this summary how hard it was to start- I still dont exactly know where to go with it, or if it matters. This is a collage after the fact, of stuff from 4 years ago. The two on the couch, that was drawn on a letter to my ex, and that alone is a weird thing to admit. Maybe not to this community, but from my lips, for me to hear it spoken is. And just saying ex is weird, for a relationship that never really happened..

Why is this worth explaining? I dont know. He and I never met. We fell in love online, and in hindsight, Im trying to feel how much was for real.. I call him my ex because I still feel it- even a girl I dated around the same time, I dont even think reflexively as my ex- I have to bring that thought to mind. But he and I, it lasted, even as it fell apart. We dont speak now, its like we're in two timelines, somewhere reality split and we dont fit even in the same universe now. But my heart said I love you for real for the first time and it was him, and I cant change that now.

In that picture, thats what we had between us. A couch to be together on, somewhere suspended on text in a chatroom between us, between two coasts. That and a field of flowers.. but thats another story. So we had this, and its all I wanted, to be together for once for real in safety and peace. And it never happened.. it was almost in anger I wrote what I did, writing who we'd been and that I was determined not to forget. "Transfigure the body for the sake of the soul, we will find what we should be" was a line from a poem I'd written about us.. the couch as a refuge, finding safety in us, but it crumbled and didnt matter in the end and he moved on. And I guess I did too.

So much of it has faded now, and on each letterhead I drew who we'd been, times I remembered and what Id wanted so badly.. Its so weird to summarize a relationship acted out entirely remotely, the sound of his voice on the phone doesn't even seem connected to the thoughts in this picture now. They were our dreams and hopes and desires intruding into a real world that didnt want or accept them.

so this is just an old picture now.. like dusty colorful puzzle pieces without a puzzle to fit in now, I dont know what to do with it anymore. I hid alot then. Alot about myself, alot I felt was true but I don't now. Im not who I was then anymore