Dying for the impossible.

You ask me to give it up and I tell you no. It's too much to handle alone.

You're not alone, you say, but you don't really understand it. This place will never be good enough. There's no use in pretending it will be. Better to pretend something else, something that will be enough.

You're losing, you say, and I tell you that I like it. Losing means letting go, giving in, surrendering. And then I will never have to go back there, where it's real, where it hurts too much to pretend. I can stay here, with them and him and her and weave new realities through the old.

But it's not real, you say, and I know now that you will never understand. Everything real hurts too much and I will never have the chance to figure out if the dreams will hurt less. Because they're just dreams. And maybe if they were real they would hurt just as bad, but I will never know. Pretending is all I have.

You can't leave me, you say, and I smile at you because I was never really here. You will never find me. You never could. Maybe if I disappear you'll stop searching and let me go.

You cry when I'm gone and I watch you from my dreams. You know now how the real things can hurt. You know what it is to pretend. You want to let go, give in, surrender, but reality needs you too much. It never needed me and I never needed it. It's easy to give in when you have nothing to give.

You forgive me in the end and it's the last time I see you. We're worlds apart now, tethered only by blood. You will never know the truth, but you grasp the tail of it within your hands and then you let it go.

And I forgive you for never knowing why.