Dear ex lover,

I thought of you today—five years later my brain brought you up. Against my will, it showed me your face. The one I’d memorized and obsessed over every night. Your fair skin, dark hair, and your freckles. The little wrinkles developing near your hazel eyes. The eyes that rarely made contact with mine because it was uncomfortable for you. Or maybe you didn’t actually like me. I told you to “get out of my head!” I tried drowning myself in a TikTok doom scroll and reading some smut and playing a video game I hadn’t finished and working…

But there you were again.

I told my therapist the other day I hardly ever think of you and that I could care less about you now, five years later. But apparently I do care, and it kind of feels pathetic. Because I know it’s only me—five years later— thinking about your face. And the way the wrinkles by your eyes would crinkle when you laughed. The way your freckles would get darker in the Summer. The way your hazel eyes would light up during the rare times you did look at me.

And I know I’ll forget about you tomorrow, and I can go on with my life. Maybe I’ll find someone else with new features to memorize and a new laugh to love.

And maybe I’ll think of you again ten years later.

- Your ex lover