"Do you miss me?" it asked.

She didn't answer.

"Tell me I didn't love you."

Not the way you should have.

"What do you know?"

Nothing. I don't know. Except that you were wrong.

"You left me, I never would have left you."

Maybe.

"If you cared you would have stayed."

That's cruel. If I didn't care, this never would have happened. 

You were perfect for me. I can't ever deny that. You were everything I ever wanted. 

And you knew me perfectly. 

You knew me. And you knew that it would hurt me. 

And yet you did it anyways. You knew, and you chose not to say anything. You knew and you were never going to tell me if I'd never found out. So what good did knowing me do?

In the end you just loved what I could do for you. 

Do I miss you? I tried not to let myself get that far. I never let myself stray too close to regret. But you were everywhere. There was too much of you to burn away. If I did, there would have been nothing left of me. 

But now? Now I'm cutting off the flesh you put on my bones. Now I'm burning the scars. Because I have enough of me now. Enough to make it.

It hurts. Now I look back and know I missed you. I know I did. Now I feel all of it. 

I never wanted to leave.

She pulled a piece of paper from the box. It was a second copy of the card that she drew for their second anniversary. She'd been saving it for their wedding day. She fingered the bent corners and thought about all the time that had passed.

 Such a stupid little thing. 

All yellowed paper and pencil marks.

Where does it go now? What do I do with all these words? Words that held the bricks of my world together. Words that filled the empty spaces between my ribs. Words that tied the strings between my bones. 

You're not here anymore. You're so far beyond the reach of my hands, grasping through the looking glass of my memories.  There's nothing to burn. There's nothing there.

How do I burn away the phantom limbs? The memory of completeness. 

How do you forget the feeling of something that is no longer there?

She picked up the box. She packed it in her bags and carried it with her until the day she would step into the flames and let the fire burn them all away.