She Was Sea

I once dated an asshole who didn’t like my breath on his skin. This lead me to not breathing around him and an unhealthy pattern of holding in my breaths and now there are days I feel like my lungs don’t have the capacity to pump the oxygen I need.

People you love can infect you in ways you never even imagined.

Don’t love. Don’t people.

I knew in my gut he was lying yet I chose to believe him. Because the truth hurt. And today, after so many months it hurts even more because I can’t believe I chose to be his fool and ignored everything so evident. I needed his lies to be his truths so badly. It was crucial for my sanity, to go on and pretend he loved me, like he promised he did. And I never promised that I loved him, yet somehow it feels like that’s all I did.

His words were loud and meaningless, while mine were silently weighing my heart.

The part of me that loved him then, loves him the same even today. The part of me he hurt, hurts the same even today. Worst is, the part of me that hurt him, doesn’t understand how to compensate at all. Do we call it even, or truce?

I’m trying to understand how it all fell apart. Maybe deep down I believed I didn’t deserve him. Maybe deep down I was still too hurt. Maybe deep down I was even more hurt that I hurt him first.

But that’s the thing, you don’t know what to feel when it’s over. You think about everything. I think about all the times he was my hero, I think about all the times I was my enemy. I think about all the times he reminded me of my shortcomings. And then I think about how I can never forgive him, for a lot of things. And also how I can never forgive myself, for the other things. And maybe that’s why, it just can’t be. Without forgiveness and trust, what would we even be.

We had a shot, we fucked up. We can’t sit on these wounds hoping they’d disappear. Because they won’t.

Sometimes in life, this is how it has to be. You make the hardest choices, even if it means walking away. Because in the end it also broke you and it was your fault too.

Maybe it’s time to let these wounds breathe and heal, all on their own, alone.

I have no words and that’s new for me because when the world turns away, my words are all I have. Or that was at least how it used to be.

03 August 2019:

Three months since we broke up, one month since we last spoke, over 48 hours since you didn’t return my call… it’s finally starting to feel like this is it.

I was terrified if you picked up it would be another window I wouldn’t be able to close, so I guess thank you.

I’m realizing I never stopped loving you. But I did stop loving how you made me feel. Always on the edge, questioning my every move. Telling me my way of life is nothing but a disgrace, which ultimately made me feel like so was my existence. When you give a certain importance to an individual you are giving them the power to define and validate you. Always on the edge, always scared of when you will finally go back to her. Because in my mind, there was always someone better for you out there. That made me love myself less and less. If I can’t love myself with you, how can I love you?

And I hated living like that. I don’t want to live like that, all I want is to be good enough, the way I am. 

It scares me one day I might have to exist in a world that no longer has you, it’s even more terrifying that it’s inevitable.

Gathering up the courage to tell you how much you mean to me.

This one’s for you Dad, you too Mamma. Love you both, with all my heart. With all the life that’s left. Nothing means more.

When you pulled the plug I couldn’t tell you I wouldn’t know how to go on about my days without you in it.

I’m only ashamed for the parts of my life my mother refused to listen, not because she didn’t want to, but because she couldn’t

I can’t hate her for the strength she didn’t have to hear how a daughter was ruined in her watch, while she was too busy tending for the parts my father never could

I can’t blame her for not being the mother I always wanted, when she had to fill in for the father that was hardly around

I’m mad at her for things she won’t even remember, but how could I be? When she was more than the mother I could’ve wished for, but also, so little of the mother I needed in many times

Big feelings for a little girl.

They said I was stupid, they said it can’t be love, said I was too young.

They said it would pass, said I would forget in time.

They were wrong. I never forgot.

They were wrong. It was love.

I never forgot the day he broke my heart, it broke me too. I had no clue what I’d done wrong. Thought love was supposed to be beautiful. Weren’t I supposed to believe him? How could I’ve known his words weren’t always true.

After all, I was just a little girl wasn’t I.