I wanted to burn bridges for a long time. If you were not going to communicate, the least you could have done was send one last message so that I could do this with you (or you could do this with me). But I wait and wait and wait for that one message that may last an eternity. Is what I do manipulation? That I wait to pounce on you the moment you speak so that I may say "your silence hurt me" and that I can never reciprocate with you again because I can never go through that again? Is it emotional blackmail? Do I really mean it? Do I want you to beg me, plead me to stay? I think I want you to fight for me and that's why I didn't take the initiative I say that you should have - to feel wanted. Our connection was hurt and I want you to prove to me that you think there is something there too. We were never an item, so officially, you have no obligation to me but under the surface level it feels different - so much deeper like you should have been there for me, with me. And it is or was my fault. I should have met you in the Edwardian Tea Rooms. I should have not gone to Portugal. But I did those things because I believed there would be - in time - a way for us to be together. And this sounds ridiculous because what better way for us to be together than for us to meet again after the first time when we felt so at ease together and I don't think it was just me. But I am shy about love - should I call it love when we were never even together, and when you were with another? I thought there was another way, a logical way but there wasn't. And I write this now because I had a dream about you. After months went by, years, you reached out to contact me on my birthday. My heart fluttered because it was the best birthday message I ever got. Every time you wrote to me it was so sincere and your feelings pour out to me in ways I can't describe. And we talked and I thought our connection would never stall again. But it did, you went silent again. I should have taken my opportunity to burn bridges knowing something to good to be true would never last. But I didn't because stupidly I hoped. Logically I thought I would get over you. I google searched it, eventually I filled the void by forming an artificial connection with another but it didn't last, she was not magical like you are. You understood and empathised with me in spite of my numerous flaws in a way that I don't think anyone else ever could. But I thought I could replace the thought of you, kill your existence in my mind. Maybe for some time I superficially did forget. But two nights ago, after two years since your last message, there you were now haunting my dreams. We were at a resort in the winter and I wrote a message for you in the snow. All my feelings poured out and I said how angry and frustrated and alone I felt, how your silence hurt me and that we must burn bridges because I could never live every day longing for your next word, there must be some way to kill the connection. The next day we sat at the same table in the cafe and you said you had seen my message. And I sat there in silence because I knew now that you know how I felt for you so deeply. There was no running away, I had to commit. And then like every bad plot line ever, I woke and it was just a dream but this truly crushed me to have my emotions played in such a way. So is it manipulation? Do I really want to burn bridges? Do I want to see you fight? Or do I just want to bleat painfully because I enjoy the self-indulgence? Honestly if we ever talked again I would not know what to say because I could not guarantee that behind any word I spoke, my intentions would be pure. But I could not let you ignore the long silence that passed between us. I think I know the reasons for it but I could not hear you say once again that you suffered with mental health, when I would have been there for you any moment you requested it. But for this much time passed, for all the sorrow and the longing, there has to be consequence, it's a law like gravity or equal and opposite reaction. Will I wait all my life for a moment that will never come? Can't I just forget? Don't I deserve at least that? And lastly, would it be fair for me to shut you down, to say "never contact me again". Could I even truly mean such a thing, or would my real meaning be that you must fight to keep this feeling alive. When I don't even know these things myself, what hope is there really?