I love you because I can’t help it. I love you because you love me too. From the minute you smiled into my life, you’ve been everything I imagined happy would be. Endless nights swinging in each other’s arms in limited time – yet time felt infinite.

You believe in me even when I can’t look at myself. You love me even when I think I’m not that great. You made me fall in love with myself. You’re the silent hope that keeps me going, the little voice inside my head that keeps telling me ‘you’ve got this!’

I just want to get lost in this bubble with you and never come out of it. You’re my happy place. I forget what Happy is until you hold me. And when you hold me and Happy is all I know. You’re my happy place.

Ghosts of the people that have touched, loved and left. When they left they left traces of their love, hidden in the corners of my mind and nerve endings.

I live in my head too much, my head has become where I spend more than half my day. I’m at peace there despite the chaos. It’s the only place that feels like home. It’s the reason why I can’t focus or why I can’t read books. It’s why I zone out in the middle of conversations. My demons never leave me alone. They are kind mostly. They don’t give me a hard time. I think they give me company because they don’t trust other people to keep me in check. They pull me in and I don’t mind anymore. They are all I have. Dancing with my demons at 2 pm or 2 am. It’s alright.

If I missed just one person it would be so much easier, wouldn’t it? Instead, I’m surfing these waves of emotions not reminding me of one person, but everyone that’s come and gone in one way or the other. Time is poison. Time reminds you of things you otherwise thought held no value to you. Time adds value to the little moments you lived with one. Time doesn’t make it easy, time squashes you into emotional turmoil. Not you, me. Time does this to me.

The impossible task is forgiving myself for the things I let happen, and let go of. I can physically checkout in a flick of a heartbeat, but mentally, I stay there for years. I’m not able to leave. I can’t drag myself out of this mess I’ve woven in love and hate.

Every time you come into my life, no matter how casual your walk back in is, I’m left craving for permanency I’ll never have with you. It reminds me of what I could have and yet, what I most certainly won’t have, with you.

A good time – that’s all that I am. Some girl who’s a constant people pleaser and someone who neglects themselves to not stir up things. Everyone knows my struggles and yet they can’t help themselves but take what they can – and leave. Another game, another night. She’ll be alright, right? She’s not your responsibility. She chooses her poison. Let her drown.

Walk-in and out of her like she’s some holiday home. You know her weakness, yet you can’t help but take what you can. So much to take and so little to give. She’s never going to ask for more. How convenient. The perfect girl to keep playing your games with. You hold her in your arms and tell her you to love her and you’d never intentionally hurt her – but that doesn’t negate the fact that you do. Over and over. She pushes you away but you can’t stop yourself from pulling her back in, because she’s just there – right? Yours to take and leave as you please.

If you dare to love, have also the courage to dignify that very love.

Does she not deserve more?

When we stopped talking, I was in literal pieces all over again. I lost the well-curated support system, my best friend, and the person I loved the most. I was all alone. I had to pick the pieces off the floor and glue myself back without you.

I don’t want to risk my balance again. I hope you understand. I know you would.

So, live as you must, your best life without me. And remember me as the girl who loved you more than the world itself, but couldn’t quite be yours. I hope you’re happy, I hope you’re content. I hope good things are happening in your life.

What do I see in you?

Yes, I see galaxies, I see a billion stars, something that was worth holding on to and something that awes me to the point where nothing else matters.

People say that love is a feeling. I understand that now because I feel you there with me whenever I think about you.

Knowing you exist gives me hope. Will never let you go if you promise not to fade away.

I love you

3 words, 8 letters, that change everything

a label, a misconception, a promise

to love unconditionally, every day, every hour, every minute – always

I’m willing to settle for a love I can explore on my good days and a love that will excuse me on my bad. A love that understands. And the only person I want to do that with is with you. You are the only person who understands me.

My love for you doesn’t demand possession. It’s knowing that you exist, that gives me hope. Everything we were, that’s made me believe I could be loved too.

Some losses aren’t made for words. They are made for stories. Stories of how trusting people got you hurt even when you were so cautious. We all have moments, weak ones. Where we are desperate to believe in something good despite all the wrong in this world. And by wrongs, I mean everything that you wish could be turned around so you can have a moment of peace. A lazy afternoon without everything falling apart. When the rain feels like a drizzle to balance out the hot weather, and not a storm of winds busting through your lungs trying to tell you you’re losing this battle. This battle. The one I fight with myself every day. To be, or not to be. When not being isn’t a choice anymore, you’re left with nothing but, just, to be. To exist, no matter what. To hope that maybe tomorrow will be better. Maybe tomorrow won’t be as hard as today. Maybe tomorrow I can control my emotional chaos. Maybe tomorrow it will feel lighter. Just maybe.

I dialled the wrong number today. I don’t know why, what, or how. Just, at that moment. I did. Maybe I missed my friend. Maybe I needed a moment of reality to slap me across the face with another, don’t knock on the doors they closed on you. It’s strange how one could promise you love, togetherness and hope, and it turns into an ugly breach of love. Disappointments are no longer just disappointments. They go so much deeper every time. Defeat multiplied.

Some losses aren’t made for words. They are made for stories. Of how you once loved and lost. And now the loss is all you face. How one stagnant end keeps ushering back and forth with one last heartbeat, sighing its final breath.

I’ve been in love, so many times. And all of them were different once-in-a whatever kind of love.

At first, it was when I was 14. He taught me how deceiving men were, the lies, cheating, bullying, it was painful. It was the end of the world to a 14-year-old. Now I can laugh it off thankfully.

And then it happened when I was 17. I was a little older, a little wiser, but still very young. This man stole my heart so effortlessly, he charmed his way into my life. And when he left he also broke my heart. And this time, I never completely recovered.

And then there it was again, Love. I was 19 this time. I was ready, I’d been waiting for that sweep-me-off-my-feet kinda love. The real love, the great one. And he did, he swept me off my feet, turned my whole world around. I gave him my world. He gave me numerous lessons. Lessons of love, heartbreak, trust, devotion, commitment & responsibility. This love knocked me off my feet. When it was over, I was no more. I was only the ghost of the girl I once was.

And then love came knocking once more, I was 23 this time. A little older, a little desperate, and so so lost. He held my hand through chaos, he walked the storm with me, promised to love me till the end. But maybe by then, I was incapable of love. I couldn’t love him, I tried. But my heart never completely gave in. It played safe, it walked around the lanes of his heart but never went in. It was afraid that if it did go in it would never have the luxury of coming out of it. And finally, it ate us up. Our love was like the food I left out for too long. It went bad, slow. There were moments that my heart knew it would only survive with this man, but then the moment would pass and I’d wake up feeling differently. I couldn’t love him like he loved me. I was holding back. I was afraid of losing myself to him.

And then came another love, I was 26 this time. Let me call it friendship, because I found a friend in him first. A friend I could always count on, a friend who was always there for me. A friend who understood me beyond the words that came out of me. He was what saved me. He allowed me to find myself again, he taught me to love myself, he loved me in a way that I fell in love with myself, and I love him for that. I always will. But, he was never mine. The unattainable love felt ideal. I wasn’t losing myself.

And then, the 27-year-old, very cynical, very broken me, found love again, for a brief moment. A best friend, a lover, a person I envisioned my future with, for the first time in a long time. I made an effort and opened my heart to him. Truth was, I couldn’t help but. He had a way with me. I wanted it to be my final love story. When it ended, it hurt me so much, it felt like the pain of every breakup I’d gone through, all at once. I accepted defeat. I handed over my badge. I was done with love.

I’m 28 now. And there’s no one I think of when love songs come on, no one I’m sad about when sad songs play. I feel nothing where I should feel everything. I’m out of love. I’m not exaggerating. I am out love. Whatever I have felt in the past, feels so foreign now. The certainty, the crazy I-need-to-be-with-you feels like a dream from a long time back. I don’t know if my subconscious swore it would never feel the way it felt again, but whatever it is, there’s certainly something missing in my soul. It feels empty. But safe. No empty promises crusading the empty hallways of my heart.

Because everything that once was isn’t anymore. When sad love songs come on, I don’t think of anyone. When happy love songs come on, no one comes to mind either. All the loves came and went, and I remain alone in my chambers. Yet I’m constantly with someone, caught up in some cheap romance. Whatever for, I don’t know. Distractions. I know people think that I’m scared, but, I’m out here, dating people, doing shit. Would I do that if I were scared?. But maybe all the half-ass romances are because of it. I don’t know. There’s nothing real out there.

What if I’m only capable of halfway romances.
What if my heart will never want anyone enough, again?

Maybe I just have to be patient. And trust the process. Hopefully, this one thought can put me to sleep tonight, and every night after.

Learning how to live with my OCD – This is one long, tough and draining journey. Having no one who can even remotely relate or understand your compulsions which you have no control over, is lonesome and isolating. My day could be perfect but a part of my brain would be fixated on something that is beyond my control, and the obsession won’t stop until something new replaces the thought. A part of my brain is designated to OCD obsessions because it hardly stops. And this is never visible, and I don’t even talk about it. Because half of it will sound ridiculous. If I tell someone the furniture in my room is suffocating me, I don’t know how people would react. If I tell people, the stains in my clothes won’t go away and it’s making it harder for me to sleep, I don’t know anyone who will truly understand. And the truly heartbreaking part of all this is, I have very little authority over half of my life. I am in no place to make the changes I need, I can’t even afford it. And that’s why it’s just heartbreaking and exhausting to live this way. It’s not just the furniture. It’s dust, it’s anything that visible to my eye that isn’t aesthetic. And that’s a lot. And no one gives a fuck about this but that takes up my life. These thoughts are intrusive and persistent and hardly rational. They only make sense to me. So to live in a world, with other people, isn’t easy.