Footnote

You don’t know who you are without me 

I want to know who I am without you 

A square peg in a round hole

Filled a gap, sure 

It didn’t fit but it would do 

But as I grow up so do my expectations 

We say no one gets us 

But I don’t even know if I do

Spread myself so thin to fill the cracks 

Thought that meant I was complete 

And so did you 

Leaving you didn’t make me realize what I had 

But what having you meant I lacked

I grew up with you and maybe that was enough 

I can’t grow old with you 

Because not everything I feel is love 

Late nights filled with cat fights 

Seemed too often to be our theme

While true love was somewhere in there 

I felt I was less than, I wasn’t seen 

Less than who I was before you and who I could become 

Because I don’t know who we are without each other 

We’ve become one

One big argument 

One unsolved situation 

One confusing relationship 

A never-ending journey to a make-believe destination

I find meaning in everything except for you

But I guess that makes two 

Because I know I’m just a security blanket for you 

It was the comfortable chaos we craved 

We were never really safe 

My brain blurs what happened 

But I remember how I felt 

Now I realize I’m not stuck 

This doesn’t have to be the cards I’m dealt 

Just because you’re all I knew 

Doesn’t mean I should have to excuse 

Keeping score, how dead I felt 

More and more of me would melt 

Lit myself on fire to keep you warm 

To keep us around, myself I mourned 

I feel numb 

Dumb 

I can’t make you be the one 

I could always feel that you secretly loathe me 

With you I’m not alone

Yet still so very lonely 

Said things I can’t forget, low expectations set

You own it, not a single regret

If I did what you did

You’d put me up for the highest bid 

Forever, I shouldn’t have to force

Carrying us on my back, I’m too sore 

And there’s a love out there I don’t have to earn 

But this was just a lesson I had to learn 

Waiting by the window for change 

Dancing to a song that no longer played 

There’s more out there than just “fine”

This next chapter is mine 

I leave you to the footnotes

My fantasies 

Not my byline 

I’ve turned out the light

After five years and five million fights 

I owe it to me, I’ve known her longer 

I’ll be stronger 

Because I know who I am without you 

Someone you had to lose

And could never fully choose

I want someone who makes me better 

Never-ending love letters 

To find that I have to let you go 

You’ll never understand 

But me, I know.