The lies I told him.

I told him I didn’t believe in praying for people because I believed everything was predestined, that what’s meant for you will never slip away.

But I was terrified of losing him, so I went home and asked for him in sujood.

I felt ashamed, but my heart got ahead of me. He became the name in my prayers.

I might be giving up on love, and maybe it won’t be the worst thing. Because, let’s be honest, what has loving people gotten me? Trying to choose people I fell for has done nothing but wreck me.

But that was something I always said, that I would never compromise with love, that if I ever settled down, I would be settling down with my best friend. And that’s the idea I always had in mind. I believed love was what made living worthwhile. And I don’t think I’m wrong there.

But maybe love helps achieve different things for different people. Our end goal isn’t love; love is simply a tool that helps us achieve greater things. We want to be loved, and that means feeling safe and secure with someone. And to feel that way, it is important that they love you. But it’s irrelevant whether you love them.

My mother used to tell me that I should find someone who loved me, not someone whom I loved. And I see her point now. But I think it would be best if I found someone who loved me more than I loved them. I still can’t let go of the idea that I can’t completely compromise with love. I can compromise a little; maybe it doesn’t have to be a great love, but it still has to be love.

But then, what is love? When I think of love, I think of all the times my soul left my body and entwined with someone else’s. And that’s happened almost never. But there have been many times my anxious or insecure attachment styles led me to believe that I desperately loved someone. And now, looking back, that may not have been it.

But friendship, love must be friendship.

And while I might be giving up on the idea of love, I just want to be loved. And one final thing, not to victimize myself, but not being loved right as a child and through your adolescent years makes finding the right kind of love incredibly difficult. Because first, you don’t really know what it feels like to be loved or to even allow it. But maybe I’ll learn.

But love perhaps isn’t everything. There are more important things: safety, security, and assurance. And loving yourself means prioritizing what’s good for your soul, not just for your heart.

I find it beautiful and bittersweet how time can reveal our true feelings towards someone. Often, we leave relationships and connections assuming we’ll find more like them, only to realise that some connections are irreplaceable. Some people love you in such a unique way that, years later, you recognise what a remarkable chance meeting it was.

You gotta love that stage, where you lose feelings for someone
Who never bothered to reciprocate them.
It’s a bittersweet freedom, like dawn breaking through night,
As you slowly free yourself from the chains of devastation,
Begging for effort that was not once granted.

I don’t think I’ve written poetry before, and the reason I do now is because I need to sugar-coat my feelings. To write them without subtlety means I’ve lost another love, and I can’t bear that. Now I write for the art of it, making it my musing, so I can convince myself I’m enjoying the hopelessness of it, romanticizing it, sensationalizing it, so I can find contentment—contentment in the idea of being in love with your impossibility.

How you had all of me, I will never know.

If you can go days without speaking to me, that is all I need to know about where your feelings lie.

I stayed in bed and grieved the loss in my head. I went out with people, one after the other, a carnival of men, and I was bored of them before they even spoke.

I bear this loss with my whole heart.