End Credits

Open Diary To My Past Loves

[theparadiseoffreethought]

Tonight I missed you, so I found myself needing a little piece of you.

A little piece of you, that's all I ask for.

I just want a little piece to remember you by. Because when you left I got rid of everything, thinking it would make me feel better.

But what happened when I was all alone and I couldn't even remember what you smelled like because I gave all your things back.

A little piece of you, that's all I'm asking.

I'm asking so I can remember the good days.

You took up so much of my life, that I can't get back.

When I was hurt, I just wanted to forget you, I wanted to forget your laugh. I wanted to forget all the times, you told me you loved me.

So I got rid of all the little pieces of you in my life.

But I just need one to remember how it felt to be loved by you.

So, I looked in an old box to find some love letters you wrote me.

The letters you promised me, forever.

But, forever wasn't long enough for us.

[coexistingwithlove]

The First Gray Hair

I saw it glinting in the mirror—

not shy, not subtle,

just there,

like it had been waiting for me

to finally slow down and notice.

A single silver line,

thin as a sigh,

bold as a confession.

It wasn’t aging—

it was truth.

And suddenly I was standing

in every year I’ve lived.

Every version of me—

the girl who loved too fast,

the woman who loved too hard,

the heart that cracked open

and kept beating anyway.

I thought of the nights

I swore I’d never fall again,

and the mornings I did

without meaning to.

The hands I held,

the names I shouldn’t have whispered,

the promises that felt like forever

until forever changed its mind.

This one gray hair—

it carried all of it.

Every goodbye I wasn’t ready for,

every hello that healed me,

every lesson life carved

into the soft parts of my spirit.

People call it aging.

But to me,

it felt like the first time

the universe wrote back.

A quiet reminder

that growing up isn’t losing youth—

it’s gaining chapters.

That love never leaves empty-handed—

it always leaves wiser.

So I didn’t pull it out.

I let it stay,

let it shimmer,

let it speak.

My first gray hair,

my silver bookmark

in the story of a woman

who has finally learned

how to love herself

enough to turn the page.

[theparadiseoffreethought]

I used to think heartbreak

was a graveyard.

Something buried.

Something you visit less

until the flowers die

and the earth forgets the shape of the body beneath it.

But grief is more lunar than that.

It disappears.

Returns.

Pulls tides from oceans you thought had finally gone still.

And sometimes,

loving you feels like standing in moonlight

realizing I am not haunted by him—

I am haunted by the woman

who survived him.

The woman who learned

to examine sunlight for hidden knives.

Who mistook inconsistency for chemistry,

begging for warmth

from stars already collapsing.

Then you arrived—

gentle in ways that make my chest ache.

You love me with both hands open.

With patience.

With reassurance repeated enough times

it should have quieted every fear by now.

Instead—

your tenderness illuminates old ruins.

Not because I want to return there.

God, I don't.

I am past him

in the way oceans are past storms—

the water remembers,

but it does not turn around.

My life moved forward.

My faith moved forward.

My heart built a home

in a different season.

You.

You, with your impossible softness.

Your stubborn way of making me feel

wanted without condition,

special without performance,

safe without bargaining.

And that terrifies me.

Because what if I am walking toward forever

still carrying echoes?

What if, beneath wedding whites

and holy promises,

an old name flickers through my mind

like lightning too far away to touch—

not because love remains,

but because pain leaves fingerprints

on the nervous system.

I fear that sometimes.

I won't lie.

But listen to me—

if the moon crosses my thoughts,

it is not because I belong to the night.

I am choosing sunlight.

I am choosing the man

who met my trembling with tenderness

instead of punishment.

The man who keeps loving me

through questions I am ashamed to ask aloud.

The man I want to pour every remaining version of myself into.

Not because you saved me.

Because you stayed.

Because you reassured me

until being loved stopped feeling like a trick of the light.

Because when I look at you,

I do not see my past repeated.

I see the ocean after the storm—

dark still, deep still,

but finally capable of reflecting the sun.

And if there are ghosts,

let them watch.

Let them witness

what becomes of a woman

who was once starving for crumbs

learning how to trust a feast.

Let them see me love you

without looking over my shoulder.

[coexistingwithlove]

The First Gray Hair

I saw it glinting in the mirror—

not shy, not subtle,

just there,

like it had been waiting for me

to finally slow down and notice.

A single silver line,

thin as a sigh,

bold as a confession.

It wasn’t aging—

it was truth.

And suddenly I was standing

in every year I’ve lived.

Every version of me—

the girl who loved too fast,

the woman who loved too hard,

the heart that cracked open

and kept beating anyway.

I thought of the nights

I swore I’d never fall again,

and the mornings I did

without meaning to.

The hands I held,

the names I shouldn’t have whispered,

the promises that felt like forever

until forever changed its mind.

This one gray hair—

it carried all of it.

Every goodbye I wasn’t ready for,

every hello that healed me,

every lesson life carved

into the soft parts of my spirit.

People call it aging.

But to me,

it felt like the first time

the universe wrote back.

A quiet reminder

that growing up isn’t losing youth—

it’s gaining chapters.

That love never leaves empty-handed—

it always leaves wiser.

So I didn’t pull it out.

I let it stay,

let it shimmer,

let it speak.

My first gray hair,

my silver bookmark

in the story of a woman

who has finally learned

how to love herself

enough to turn the page.

[theparadiseoffreethought]

I’m starting to think love was never carved for me.

Maybe I’m built for tides, not futures —

for passing storms, not foundations.

Maybe I was meant to be a voice in the dark,

soft enough to lure,

sharp enough to scare off anything that tries to stay too long.

Maybe the white dress belongs to another life, another shoreline.

Maybe forever was never written in my stars.

Some creatures weren’t made for keeping — only for calling.

People tell me I have siren eyes —

the kind that pull without trying,

the kind that hold a storm behind their color.

They say I draw them in,

and they don’t realize the ocean in me has no shallow end.

Loving me means drowning a little.

And some men only know how to sip water,

never how to breathe beneath it.

I lure without meaning to, and lose without wanting to.

Being someone’s daylight still feels like walking across sand

the sun has scorched for hours —

heat rising, grains biting,

the kind of burn that leaves no marks

but drains you anyway.

Still I trek forward,

barefoot, determined,

toward someone who never asks if I’m tired.

The sun demands brightness from me I never agreed to give.

And I keep burning for people who don’t know how to shade me.

I’m tired of relearning strangers —

their colors,

their wounds,

their appetites,

their storms.

Every new person feels like rewriting a letter

I already bled for someone else.

My heart is a script I’ve etched too many times,

ink watered down from overuse,

edges worn like driftwood.

How many times can I rewrite myself before the page disappears?

And there was someone —

someone who knew my depths without diving lessons,

who knew the temperature of my waters,

the taste of my silences,

the way I liked my food

and the rituals of how I loved.

He mapped me effortlessly,

as if he’d been here lifetimes before.

With him, there was no relearning,

no retelling,

no rebuilding from dust.

Memory can be its own kind of ghost — especially when it knows your name.

But anyone new?

I feel the weight of the mountain before the climb.

The trail I’ve hiked in a thousand different bodies,

a thousand different heartbreaks.

The sun rising again, asking me to shine,

to warm,

to give,

to hope.

But hope feels expensive these days.

Light feels like something sharp I could cut myself on.

Not every dawn is meant to be survived.

Maybe I cast my love

into lakes that never answer back.

Maybe my rivers run to people who only bring drought.

Maybe my attention is a tide —

constant, loyal,

washing over shorelines that will never reach back for me.

My tears feel heavier now,

like riverwater in winter —

slow, cold, deliberate,

carrying pieces of me downstream.

Even water breaks when it’s tired of flowing.

And now I stand between the sun and the moon,

between scorch and shadow,

between the heat that demands and the night that consumes.

The sand beneath me burns,

the waves beside me whisper,

and the moon above keeps its distance.

I feel like a siren stranded on the rocks,

singing to ships that only know how to approach,

never how to anchor.

It’s easy to reach me — it’s staying that sinks them.

Maybe love, for me,

is a coastline collapsing into the sea —

beautiful, dangerous, inevitable.

Maybe I’m meant to be the calm water someone fears,

the moon someone craves but can’t hold,

the voice that draws them close

only for the truth to send them drifting away.

Some hearts were made for tides, not promises —

and mine keeps returning to the ocean,

even when it’s cold.

[theparadiseoffreethought]

“I Wish She Would Have Let Us In”

And suddenly,

I’m back in the home that feels like home.

Back in my aunt’s kitchen—

not through the front,

never through the front,

but always through the back.

The screen door sighs open,

and the garden hums—

rows of green and gold,

where my great-grandfather’s hands

pulled miracles straight from the dirt.

Tomatoes, collards, peaches—

offered to me still warm from the sun,

still humming with life.

Inside,

the air is thick with comfort.

Cake cooling on the counter,

stew bubbling slow,

stories carried in the steam.

The wooden table—

cluttered, crowded, alive.

No salt, no pepper—

we don’t need that, he’d say,

as if flavor was born from faith alone.

By the hallway,

a picture—

a caricature of me,

red bows and bright smile,

from some Sesame Street kind of day

she must’ve taken me to.

You can almost hear the crayons

scratching joy across paper.

Shirley Temple sang from the TV,

black-and-white turned gold in our laughter.

I probably still know every word,

every twirl, every song.

That house—

it wasn’t just walls.

It was warmth.

It was heartbeat.

It was home.

My great-grandfather sat in this big blue recliner

in the living room—

the throne of our tiny kingdom.

We’d fight over the TV,

over what to watch,

over what to name Spot—

the guinea pig she bought me

because she said I needed a friend.

And my aunt,

my forever peacekeeper,

was always in the middle—

soft voice, calm hands,

a smile big enough to fit us both.

But it’s okay,

we loved the bickering anyway.

It was just our way

of saying we belong here.

I miss the peppermint she’d press into my palm at church,

the slow melt of sugar and sermon on my tongue.

I miss lying in her bed,

the hiss of the hot comb,

the smell of pressing grease and patience.

Me—babbling about nothing,

her—listening like it was gospel.

He’d take my dolls from my bag,

sit them up proud on top of his dresser,

just to watch me fuss.

And still,

even in our little wars,

the house glowed soft around us.

There were late-night dog walks

under sleepy streetlights,

her fridge always full of cherries—

my favorite, always waiting.

That house raised me.

Held me.

Taught me love in quiet ways.

And when he passed,

something in her shifted.

She turned inward,

folded herself into silence.

The curtains stayed drawn.

The light stopped coming in.

We tried—

God knows we tried—

to reach her.

To pull her back through that door.

But all we could do

was peek through the crack,

call her name,

and hope she’d answer.

I spent so much of my childhood there.

It was hard to leave that house.

Harder still

to see the way it changed.

To see what she became

when the warmth went quiet.

And I wish she would have—

just once more—

let us in.

I wish she would have let us in.

[theparadiseoffreethought]

Last October,

I thought I was happy.

Like finally, maybe-this-is-it happy.

He called me his peace—

said I calmed the storm in him.

But somewhere along the way,

peace became the problem.

He told me I was too peaceful.

Too perfect.

Said I fix everything—

like that was a flaw.

But that’s just me.

I love in ways that steady the ground.

I don’t cause fires,

I build homes from ashes.

I felt us slipping for months—

that slow heartbreak,

where silence starts speaking louder than words.

Then October came

with gestures dressed up like love,

candles and promises that smelled like almost.

For a second, I believed him.

For a second, I believed in us.

But peace doesn’t compete with chaos, does it?

You can’t out-heal someone

who’s addicted to hurting.

You can’t out-love someone

who’s already halfway gone.

So I let October pass.

And with it, the version of me

that kept waiting to be chosen.

Now, when the air turns cold,

I remember how it used to feel—

to be someone’s calm before their storm.

He called me his peace,

but the truth is—

he didn’t know what to do

with something that didn’t hurt him.

And now I know:

I wasn’t too peaceful.

I was just finally everything

he wasn’t ready to hold.

And this time—

I’m keeping that peace for myself.

[theparadiseoffreethought]

Heavy on my mind, heavy on my mind,

how much longer… how much longer can this last?

We never meant to fall this far,

but now we are tangled in each other’s days,

words slipping like silk

through my fingers.

Texting you feels like breathing,

talking to you… it just should be.

Maybe we should have drawn lines,

a long time ago,

but we were scared—

scared to taste new love.

We’ve loved before,

in other arms, other hearts,

but like the tide chasing the moon,

we keep coming back,

back to each other,

blessed, cursed, inevitable.

We shouldn’t be together.

Your heart waits elsewhere,

on someone I loved, while I was silent.

I finally told you how I feel,

but you cannot return it.

Last time, drunk and reckless,

you said it:

“If I called, you’d come.”

How am I supposed to carry that?

A spark in my hand,

a shadow in your eyes,

knowing it will never be mine.

You are my storm, my fire,

a love that burns slow,

messy, wild, impossible…

and I cannot run from it.

We were meant to be friends,

but we broke the rules,

built it up, then broke it down again.

I am scared—scared

we will lose this fragile light,

this late-night fire,

this quiet kind of heaven we made.

“Let’s enjoy it while it lasts,” you say.

But how can I sip sweetness

from a glass I know is cracked?

I know it’s cracked,

but I cannot stop drinking,

I cannot stop drinking…

Heavy on my mind, heavy on my mind—

how much longer…

how much longer can this last?

[theparadiseoffreethought]

Final Act of Love

For my final act of love,

I will unlace my fingers from yours

and let you drift—

like smoke rising into night air,

like a name whispered

to the wind that does not answer.

Because no one has ever mourned me

the way I bury them in my chest.

No one stays awake with burning eyes

at 3 a.m.,

searching the ceiling for reasons,

asking shadows for prayers.

They simply turn the page

while I drown in unwritten chapters.

So the last devotion I give

is not to you,

but to myself.

I will pour the love I carried for you

into new hands—

hands that don’t hold me

like a placeholder,

but cradle me

like a flame worth protecting.

That is what healed love feels like:

not silence, not half-light,

but a mirror where I see myself

clearly, wholly.

My final act of love

is to open the gates you locked,

to tear down the walls

you built from broken promises.

To let the sunlight spill in,

even on the ruins.

I will press delete—

photos fading like ghosts,

videos dissolving into static.

No relics left to chain me

to a story that ended.

I will not wonder anymore

what lips you kiss,

what lies you tell yourself,

if you ever hunger for me

like I starved for you.

I will not tuck you into prayers

about whether you ate,

whether you’re breathing.

Because the truth is,

you weren’t whole without me.

You thought the grass was greener,

the skies wider,

the honey sweeter in her garden.

But it wasn’t.

It took only a season to learn

that I was the rain

that made your fields bloom,

the horizon that painted your dawn,

the sweetness in your every swallow.

And still—

you let it slip away.

Yet while you searched for light,

I became my own lantern.

While you chased greener grass,

I learned I was the meadow.

While you mistook sweetness for scarcity,

I discovered love abundant in me.

So my final act of love

is this:

to stand at the grave of what we were,

lay flowers for the memory,

and walk away unburdened.

Because now,

I am the love I once begged for.

And I choose me.

[remanence-of-love]

[theparadiseoffreethought]

Are you going to keep trying to love me while you're unhealed?

Something bothered me when you said the women before me ruined you.

Do you even want healing?

Do you want me to heal you?

I don't want to heal, anymore people, all that leaves me with is brokenness at the end.

You think you love me?

But really you love my light, that's not me the person.

The light is what I do for you.

I've heard it all before...

Tell me...

Is the peace I bring?

The calmness in your chaos?

Does it snuff out the problems when I'm around?

Let me guess...

You've never met someone like me?

So perfect?

So smart?

Or strong willed?

Really sure of herself right?

Well, I can't heal anymore.

I can barely heal myself anymore.

I don't have the capacity to give off anymore light to anyone else.

I'm too busy living.

And it seems like everytime I really am living... fully,

Some person comes around seeking a healer.

[theparadiseoffreethought]

Today I randomly smelled your favorite cologne.

I found your highschool shirt I stole.

It's funny because I was home in my room, just minding my business.

Then I missed your stupid dance,

I missed the little glimmers of happiness

I missed watching TV at 3am with you after you got home.

I still can't watch some things without you.

It just feels wrong.

I wish I could hate you maybe that would hurt me less...

But today I missed your arms,

I missed your kisses on my forehead.

And I couldn't help but to cry a bit, even after all this time.

Cried because I deserved more,

I deserved more of us

More laughter

More dates.

But then I remembered I got empty promises.

I got heartbreak

I got tears and sad looks

I got nothing in the end.

But today I still missed what could've been.

[missinyouiskillingme]

I still wonder how you‘re doing and walk past places we‘ve been in. I hate that you still cross my mind.

Jamie Miller, Over You

[theparadiseoffreethought]

"Stories were supposed to have happy endings, right? Well, I can't seem to get off chapter 26. Because that's where you bookmarked me like a forgotten novel. Did you not like the story we were creating? Was it not exciting enough for you?"

[theparadiseoffreethought]

Am I unlovable?

I finally said it after all this time...

But again I wind up playing second fiddle to someone else in your heart.

Why don't you love me like you love her?

I feel so alone like I'm not actually important to you or anyone else.

Am I that hard to love?

I give and give until there's no more of me left to give.

Why do I love you?

God please let me stop loving him.

I fear everyday that I'm unlovable.

I cry to the heavens so someone could hear me and ease the pain.

I never get back the love that I give.

I keep letting go of the things I love, and they never come back.

[soulindevelopment]

[remanence-of-love]