To Me, Myself, and You

I wish I had written more when we were in love because I truly, to my core, believe that we were in love. In the same way I believe that my dog knows his own name and that I believe Meryl Streep is a sweet person who would invite me in for tea if given the chance. I have zero hard evidence for either but I would sacrifice myself before admitting or accepting evidence to the contrary. I haven’t felt this sort of raw, ripping pain in a long time, possibly ever. We are roughly 45 days or so from the incident but I promise you: I am still raw. Today, my wonderful OBGYN sheepishly asked how my partner and I were doing and if we were still involved. The heat behind my eyes rose and all of a sudden an ebbing wave of salty vulnerability edged the bottom of my eyes. She was just being polite, and frankly doing her job in inquiring about my sexual activity. But it was just someone I had to tell, someone I hadn’t seen since it happened and therefore needed the download on my heartbreak. I consider myself a sensitive person but ever since you melted me down to whatever puddle of uncertainty and shame I have become, I cry at everything; anything. 

One time I said to you, that I needed some space, some sort of break. You reacted with anger and accusations of my attempting to end our relationship abruptly; of course that is what you ended up doing, thanks for that by the way. But in all my patience and kindness, two traits I am in short supply of, particularly these days, I explained to you that I had been growing my roots around yours, and my branches were entwined with your leaves, and I was afraid we were reaching a point where if either tree pulled away the other would wither. So I did some trimming and weed whacking and what ever else arborists might do and I thought I was doing proper and productive maintenance. But your flowers shriveled and you began to hoard the sunlight and then blame me for the heat. I realized we had become too close and reliant on one another for intimacy and attention, perhaps not the worst exchange in a relationship, but in moderation.

I wish I had written more when we were in love, when I was in love at least. Because I am in this horrible, tormented state of crouching over and collecting the sharp bits of my heart, the reality that my favorite person voluntarily walked out of my life to leave me by myself. With hardly a second thought. All of a sudden I lost so much: boyfriend, best friend, but I also lost my love. Being in love is so euphoric it feels invincible despite being inexpressibly fragile. And when my love was sucked out of the door behind your cowardly actions and lack of words, it was replaced with this extensive capacity for hurt. But I regret not writing  more when I was in the other extreme. The love extreme, where a shining moment is amplified by sharing it with someone that relishes in your joy and rejoices beside you. The love extreme, when every cloudy day is softened by their arms around you and the way they tell you everything will be okay. Then, they pull the clouds over you and command the lighting to strike, and you’re standing in the pouring rain confused and empty because the arms you usually go to have left, and the eyes you’d give anything to look into again don't want to look at you anymore. 

Maybe the more you feel the hurt maybe the quicker it goes away. Maybe when your heart breaks a finite amount of hurt pours out filling up your body. Maybe every time I cry so hard it makes me nauseous and my eyes so puffy I don’t look like my license photo, that is some of the hurt leaking out of me. I should stop reciting his phone number in my head by accident, preventing me from ever ridding my headspace of it. I could make room for someone else's phone number. If anyone wants to give it to me. I never documented how safe I felt in bed with him, or how much I loved every single kiss he ever gave me. I should have written about how much I missed him when we were away from one another because that is the most beautiful kind of missing someone. When you know you’ll be together again soon, but lament excessively because it feels so good to really miss someone that deeply and irrationally and to have someone miss you, to want you back. And now he doesn’t. I don't know if he misses me but I know he doesn't want me back. But I miss him. I miss him so pathetically that I cannot help but think less of myself. 

I must stop saying, “my boyfriend broke up with me” because he is no longer my boyfriend and never will be again. Speaking about him with any vocabulary other than “ex’ and “coward” are inappropriate. I wish I had written when I was in love, but sometimes I think rereading a version of me that was unaware of the impending heartbreak would feel foolish, embarrass myself in front of myself. My worst fears came true, that he has left the soil and now I am withering. I hope someone waters me enough to help the green burst into my leaves again and the sun is generous enough to filter light through the other, stronger trees in my direction. In my wildest fantasies I am the one to water myself, and end up being the tallest tree in the forest.

I want to say I wish him well but that feels like a lie. I don't wish him misery or anything, more like I wish mundaneness upon him. I hope his next girlfriend doesn’t laugh at his jokes as heartily because I always loved your sense of humor. And I hope she isn't as good in bed as I am. I hope she doesn't lick your ear the way I know you like. I hope she has a flat ass and a flatter personality. I just wish I was still his. I don't want to imagine a world where he loves someone else and kisses them where he used to kiss me. I think about our last kiss a lot. Maybe his next girlfriend will be into anime— I tried, just wasn't for me, sorry. Did we have anything in common except weed? If I didn't smoke weed I never would have met you. Maybe all the marijuana clouded my judgement and that’s why I wasted almost two years on someone who can barely parallel park. I always liked parking the car for you, it made me feel needed. 

Everyone thought I broke up with him. Everytime I mentioned we were done, I was met with inquisitions about why I ended it only to cheerfully reply that I was dumped harder than dog shit into a park trash barrel. I wish you had done it in person. I wish you hadn't done it at all. But you did and now all I can do is spew my bleeding heart onto this page hoping the feelings stay there instead of inside of me.

I think about our last kiss all the time, too much. It was awful, you were so cold. And you're such a good kisser but this wasn't one of your real kisses, one of your kisses that made me feel weightless and gave me goosebumps. The more I think about it the more I realize it was a kiss from someone who was planning a break up. Someone who had lost the love. I’m surprised I didn't realize it earlier. That your looks were less loving. Your hands were less abrasive, less interested with my body. I miss your hands on me. Around me. You were recoiling slowly from me, I chalked it up to work stress. How naive of me. I bet he doesn't even remember the last kiss. I bet you don't remember the last kiss. We stayed at yours the night before and took the 57. I loved you so much for taking it with me even though 501 took you straight to your office. We rode the bus, you were quiet, which was normal for the morning. The bus pulled over and I hopped off and spun around for my routine goodbye-have-a-great-day-I-love-you kiss. But I never got it. Instead the kiss I got was stiff and devoid of any feeling, and I thought about it as I walked down Brighton Ave. But by the time I got into my place I had decided I was overthinking. I showered in my shitty shower and shaved my legs to be soft for you when you came home, hoping I could get your hands to fall in love with me again. I had the whole day off and you had the night off, which meant I got you all night which was my favorite. But I think that was your least favorite. You told me you would go home and stare at the ceiling. I don't know what the fuck that means. That you’re depressed? I knew that. Same. So I guess it just meant you were deliriously happy when you weren't with me. I am so high maintenance my boyfriend broke up with me to lay on his bed alone in silence. EX-boyfriend! I shaved my legs to be broken up with. That’s a different kind of hurt. A different kind of embarrassing. I don’t think I shaved my legs for two weeks after that because it was triggering my tears. 

That’s the truth about writing about heartbreak, its always a foggy view. I hope everything gets clearer soon.