I spent an entire year asking: how will I go on without you?
Instead, I learned this: a starfish can regenerate two ways.

Autotomy, when the starfish severs a limb to escape the hold of a predator; and fission, a regrowth of missing limbs after cleaving itself in half along its central disc. Regeneration can take a year. Either way, the starfish does it alone.

Here is how I went on without you:

One morning, I pressed a promise against the glass of the shower door — I don’t beg you to love me anymore. After, the steam kissed the letters into droplets that split off and skated into nothing. The spray sliced down my arms.