Remember

Remember

Do you remember that night we spent on the floor, playing Pokémon? We must've kissed for hours, laying on that floor together. Afterward, you rested your head on my lap and stared up at me with your soul-snatching eyes. It was the first time I ever felt safe being so close to someone. Even though we were still basically strangers...you felt like home.

That night. That's when I knew I was yours.

My favorite way to punish myself for existing

Is holding onto people I should've already let go.

It was you. It was always you.

You were always the one I would've chosen.

And you chose someone else.

What I Wish I Could Tell You

I wish I could tell you to leave him--to run away and never look back. But I can’t. You still love him (the potential you’ve always seen in him). You still have hope that one day he’ll change--that one day he’ll buy you gifts on your birthday and comfort you when you cry. 

You’ve seen who he really is (an empty shell), but you don’t believe it yet. You can’t believe it because you still think that it’s you. You know you don’t deserve to be cheated on, insulted, and silenced. You know that...but you don’t believe it. You think, “if I just try a little harder and do a little more for him, then things will be better. He’ll stop hurting me”. But the truth is he won’t--because this isn’t about you. It’s about him, and it always has been.

 No matter how much harder you try or how long you wait, it will never be enough. A black hole is insatiable, and you are already running on empty. He will keep taking your light until you, too, are an empty shell--a husk of who you once were.

 I wish I could tell you that you’ll feel so much lighter once you’re free of him--that home won’t feel like a prison anymore and you’ll be able to breathe without the constant weight of fear suffocating you. 

I wish I could tell you that I know all of this because I’ve lived a story just like yours--that I, too, was afraid to leave despite knowing I deserved better. That I, too, betrayed myself over and over again all in the hopes of winning the love of someone who never even existed in the first place.

I can’t tell you this, and I won’t. But that’s ok--because you’ll figure all of this out on your own, in your own time. I know you will, because you are strong. 

I miss you.

So, I am still sad.

But my sadness has morphed into a new kind.

Now it's a quiet, calm, baby blue

Sort of sadness.

One that is no longer violent.

One that no longer screams.

This sadness tumbles gently forward

Like waves onto a sandy shore--

Bringing with it sweet memories of you

Swaddled in sorrow.

I welcome this sadness--

These memories.

Sorrow and all---

Because they're fragments of you.

And

Despite everything,

I adore you.

I adore you,

And

I always will.