Year Written: 2026



 It was our own little world. A world created by the vast amount of ■, causing us to think unlike everyone else. This world, made up piece by piece out of messages and texts, was one that had etched itself into my mind. Now, four years after that world had manifested, it’s been long abandoned, as one of its roots was torn and never recovered.

 I’ve lived my life having given love through only what can come out of my mind– words. The relationship that I had was founded by the lack of feeling the bare touch of one another. Having never locked eyes, having never felt the warmth our bodies emitted, having never exchanged items of trivial relevance to each other, we took a leap of false faith – for neither of us thought it would last even a mere few months.

 Yet, it went on for years, where an entire piece of our lives were engraved in the words we said to only ourselves. Throughout the thousands of messages, I couldn’t count how many times we said “I love you” and “It’s okay”. But no amount of repetition, of tradition we made up ourselves, could leer our minds away from the ■.

 With only our words, we told each other everything about ourselves–to imagine what we could be like without the ■. We shared our names, our interests, our hobbies, our goals, our dreams, our grievances, our shame, our struggles, our love, our appearance, our families, our friends, our cities, our secrets, our addictions, our fears, our sorrows, our lusts, our flaws, our strengths, our relationships, our lives, and our ■.

 Like a scar in my heart, I could feel its sting with every passing day, never letting me forget. How every sentence that lingered in my mind screamed to be noticed, how much I wanted it to keep its ■ from me. No matter how much I think and think, the words couldn’t fix the ■.

 Words couldn’t fix the ■ of our heart. Words couldn’t fix the ■ of our beliefs. Words couldn’t fix the ■ of our perspectives. Even though we used tone indicators and hints, words themselves had ■ with each other, no emotion that could possibly be attached to them.

 Our minds became numb because of the ■. Our hearts became numb because of the ■. Our words became numb because of the ■. Her love numbed, because of the ■.

 And when I finally got close to her, when finally, there existed no more of that ■, it had already taken its toll. No matter what I thought I could try or believe, the feeling of hugging her was the only thing I ever got from this life of long ■.