The rain makes me nostalgic.

I fell in love with someone just like you. He had terrible bouts of insomnia, and was seemingly tired quite often. He worked a lot. And he wrote eminently, in the little free time he had. He had a way with words, that man. He was funny, and very witty, too. Sometimes he had these goals, these plans, and though he hesitated, he still shared them with me. I felt a certain privilege every time I was able to indulge myself with them. They weren't just black and white pieces of paper. They were parts of him, his mind, his heart, and his soul. I could never quite fully describe the depth of the way that I loved him. Just the way he existed brought me utter joy.

His life consisted of the simple yet basic necessities: work, family, friends, and then there was me. I hadn't realized it then, because of the staggering way he had affected me, but I had been unscrupulously stuck in the back burner. I was so incredibly happy just being together, and just talking every day, I just didn't realize that we had been moving towards a cliff, and that if I had paid any attention to the glaring signs that were all around me, I could have stopped the tragic and impelling train that we were, from charging off into the depths.

He had never introduced me to his friends, nor his family. As much as I wanted to be a part of his life, he didn't let me. I didn't think about it much then, and that surely breaks my heart just a little more than the actual occurrence -- that I had not seen it coming. Stupid, stupid.

Words and promises broken. That's all we were. That's all we ever could have been.

What that relationship had inevitable brought me, and continued to have left me with, was the cold and impaling feeling of doubt. In myself, my life, the way that I loved. Why didn't it work? Was I not funny enough? Was I not witty enough? Was I not pretty enough? Did I not love enough? Or perhaps, I loved too much. There must be something wrong with me, that I could not capture his heart like he did mine.

I promised myself after that I couldn't let myself do that again. I couldn't love another who promised me worlds of his love, and yet never put forth the actions to prove so.

Yet here I am, with you. And where are you? Not here. Not with me.

I can't have it this way. I have been broken far too many times to willingly let me give myself over again to the same kind of pain.

I could write novels of all the ways the people that I have cared for, and have unconditionally loved so deeply, have taken that vulnerable part of me and inevitably shattered my whole being into pieces, some still lost and rendered incorrigible.

I could also count the ways that I could love you. Every part of you. But what would I get in return?