Falling Out Of Love - Tumblr Posts
Poem: Tactless
Little is my love for you lately,
Knowing where you’ve been
And all that you’ve seen
Without a fraction of thought
For what it all might mean
When you recount it to me.
j.p
Poem: Solo
She danced around the room,
looking people in the eyes
as she twirled past them,
never meeting the same gaze
twice. In the flashing lights,
spinning late into the night,
she was untouchable,
her tears dripping like sweat,
catching light like diamonds,
slipping, unseen, to the ground
as she kept gliding forward,
spinning late into the night.
j.p
Poem: Solo
She danced around the room,
looking people in the eyes
as she twirled past them,
never meeting the same gaze
twice. In the flashing lights,
spinning late into the night,
she was untouchable,
her tears dripping like sweat,
catching light like diamonds,
slipping, unseen, to the ground
as she kept gliding forward,
spinning late into the night.
j.p
Poem: Solo
She danced around the room,
looking people in the eyes
as she twirled past them,
never meeting the same gaze
twice. In the flashing lights,
spinning late into the night,
she was untouchable,
her tears dripping like sweat,
catching light like diamonds,
slipping, unseen, to the ground
as she kept gliding forward,
spinning late into the night.
j.p
You taught me a softer way to love. Which is to say I have always loved like wildfire. Always loved vicious. All or nothing. Overwhelming and unbearable and so hard it hurts. Always loved a war of desire leaving my heart a ravaged battlefield with thick scar tissue in the shape of words they never said. But we burnt out. Which is to say I fell out of love with you in the summer sun in the middle of a movie theatre parking lot and it had nothing to do with you. And I did not realize this for years in the aftermath of this heartbreak. It had nothing to do with you. For you had always been you. It was me. For it is always me and the moment I am disillusioned regarding exactly what I am deserving of. Regarding exactly what you are offering and what I had misinterpreted your open palms and open smile for. Which is to say I fell out of love with you to save myself. In an act of self-preservation. To keep loving you would have killed me. So I stopped. Which is an oversimplification of the process of withdrawal but I did. I fell out of love with you. And I am better for it.
Which is to say when I did, touching you ached less. Your name in my mouth didn't sting so much. Every time you talked about someone else it never cut deep enough to leave a mark. And then it stopped cutting at all. And then I started being happy for you. And now, all this time later, I suppose when I call you my friend I mean it. Which is to say I never text you first anymore and it isn't even on purpose. Which is to say we talk when we have time, usually when you are home from school for the break, and I laugh like renewal, but never with enough joy that it threatens to rip my seams. Which is to say I have not fallen in love with anyone since you but I'm okay with that. I know I could. Which is to say I do not rearrange plans when you call and I do not particularly care about seeming intelligent to you anymore. Or beautiful. Or talented. Or worthy. I don't worry about keeping you coming back. Because I know you'll return for us eventually. And we'll pick up where we left off. Like we cannot help but meet again where you last left the person I used to be.
But every time we are together for more than a handful of moments I am in love with you again. And my heartbeat syncs with yours. And when you look at me I want you to keep looking. And when you touch me I want you to keep touching. But you never do. And I am practiced in this. So this time you walk me all the way home and it doesn't even get my hopes up. This time you sing to me at my doorstep and I do not flinch. Remind myself it is not your fault your kindness works like this. That this is just who you are. Because I will walk inside and peek out the glass for you to look back and you won't. And I will remember in the reflection that I am no one special to you. And I will fall out of love again, just like I have done a dozen times before with you. And I will go upstairs and take a shower humming the lyrics to the song you last played me and when I step out of the stream of water, my desire will be washed down the drain. And I will cease loving you until next time.
You taught me a softer way to love. Because I think you taught me there are some people we will never fall all the way out of love with. And that can be okay sometimes. As long as you are not destroying yourself with longing. Some things cannot be helped.
~ #3 : reflections on falling out of unrequited love with him
Which is to say I fell out of love with you to save myself. In an act of self-preservation. To keep loving you would have killed me. So I stopped. And I think this is why you were the person out of all the persons I've ever loved that I got to keep in my life even after. Because loving you was growing up. Was realizing just because you can't have the entire good thing doesn't mean you have to deny yourself the piece offered. That a slice of lovely doesn't have to be the end of you. Was learning to make do with what I was given with a smile and a thank you. Was learning to be grateful. Because we don't always get to have what we want. And we can't keep throwing tantrums by having panic attacks in the bathroom over accidental glances and unintentionally broken promises.
Loving you was growing up. Was realizing some people are nice to everybody. They have a talent for making people feel wanted, but this does not mean that they want you, and that is okay. That is okay. Their kindness is not their fault. Loving you was growing up. Was realizing people are busy. People's lives don't stop because you have chosen this inopportune time to become madly infatuated with them. They don't text you back. They don't love you back. They don't think about you. They forget to ask about your day. They say things that hurt even when that wasn't what they meant to do. And you grow up. You brush it off. You realize this is not a reflection of your self worth. You stop expecting people to fulfill what you dreamed them up to be. You let them just be them. And you learn to let this be enough.
Because loving you was growing up. To keep loving you would have killed me, and I realized for the first time how childish it was to disintegrate into a hurricane of self-destruction when rejection was so softly gifted. To ache until I tore like it would change anything. And I suppose growing up doesn't have to mean wanting to live, but it at least meant trying. Which is to say I fell out of love with you to save myself. In an act of self-preservation. To keep loving you would have killed me. So I stopped. Which is an oversimplification of the process of withdrawal but I did. I fell out of love with you. And I am better for it.
~ #4: reflections on falling out of unrequited love with him
(Original excerpt removed from '#3: reflections on falling out of unrequited love with him')
Ante Meridiem
Nobody's happy with this. Not after nearly a century of idealizing dreams, the past, the future, anything. All the couple can do is live–and suffer–in the present early morning.
Aka Painful Gerita, also on AO3. Link at bottom.
Germany woke up at five in the morning that day. His morning walk took no less than thirty minutes. His urge to check the emails from the previous day was overcome by the reminder that he was on a getaway. This getaway was not for his solid soul, but he made it his own.
Italy had barely been asleep by the time Germany woke up. The man rested as well as a rock in a stream, seemingly unmoved by the world around it. However, even rocks erode, just as memories from a time gone by would do. At the soft aroma of coffee, Italy rejected sleep in favor of his mind's criticism of the substance. There had been so little care. No art, only cold calculation. Watching Germany operate the hotel's coffee machine was akin to watching an automaton at work. Boring and tasteless, but ultimately impressive.
"Up so soon?" Germany asked, thrown off by the quiet staring.
Italy didn't speak for a moment. His lips were dry and his sheets were too hot, even for his climate. He didn't even have clothes on his chest, just the necessary underpants to make his partner more comfortable.
However, when he thinks back, he can't remember why they're still together.
Maybe it was the charm of someone who couldn't be shaken by charisma. Maybe it was the challenge that was getting him to blush. Maybe it was his need for stability, or his projection onto the somewhat young nation. The way he wanted them both to be happy, despite only ever annoying him.
Germany plans ahead for the day. His calendar is on his phone, blue eyes fixed on blue light, making them both dull in the process. Nothing matters today, but there are upcoming deadlines further into the month. Ones that he can't miss. He's never missed deadlines, not even when he wasn't entirely sure what they were for.
It was now seven in the morning. Italy wasn't dressed in the slightest. Germany was ready for everything.
Italy couldn't let go of the fun he'd had yesterday, he could hardly get up.
Germany refused to be stuck in the past, planning their new outing.
The pair were many things. They were anything but truly happy. So, they stayed quiet together, for it was too familiar or useful to let go.
"Are you going to get ready?" Germany asked, tapping his foot on a squeaky board. It entertained his racing mind for a moment.
"Si, sorry, five more minutes..." Italy replied, lying back down.
They didn't even argue any more.
Nothing was there. Not their minds, not their hearts, not even a sense of warmth. Italy and Germany both knew it, but neither said that they had fallen out of love.
Perhaps one day someone would speak up. But for now, the mornings would move as slowly as possible. Every waking moment was hell, despite having once felt like heaven. The past and the future were idealized, but all either nation could do now was be miserable in the present AM.
If it doesn’t last I want to be the one they think about late in life, the one they regret losing...the one that got away.
-the thoughts that slip through my mind after I’m left alone again