Leaving him again, losing again, putting it out of my mind that I am leaving behind the one person whom I have loved for so long. Knowing that I will never have the delightful sense of intimacy and comfort that I have with him ever again because I will never tell anyone of my past again. No one will ever know me as well as he does again, he is the last and the best. And why not? Is it possible that there really is just one person in the world for everyone, have I found mine and lost him twice in the span of 6 years?
I didn't realize until just now how hard it is going to be to leave behind what I have. Not the place, not even the people, just him. The irony of it is if he had asked me to stay, hinted that he needed me to stay or wanted me the way that I want him I would have stayed, even if it killed me, I would have stayed.
It's the never ending conundrum of my life that I will want what I simply cannot have. I got a taste of something I didn't think I would ever get a taste of and now... now I am loathe to give it up. The companionship, the way I can be myself with him in a way that I can't be with anyone else, that I have never been able to be with anyone else. He looks at me and sees something that no one else sees and it still isn't good enough for him for some reason, it just isn't enough.
I suppose I shouldn't be surprised, I knew I wasn't enough, past experience has taught me well that I am not enough, I am missing something that other people have and I don't know what it is exactly.
"It will be harder than you think to replace you." Words I have longed to hear for so long, that I am worth it, that I am worth something more than I think I am, that someone thinks that I am different, that I will be difficult to replace, that I offer something other people don't. The pain that I feel that I apparently will not be so difficult to replace because
he didn't ask me to stay.
Last time counts for all, last words and first impressions are what really matters. I got my taste of things I didn't think I would ever get to have and that should be enough for me, but it's not. I haven't been with or thought of being with anyone except him for so long I don't remember what it is like to want anyone else. Even when he was with someone else, he was all I wanted and I didn't taint myself with another person, waiting patiently and encouraging him in his "love" confident he would come back to me. Lo and behold my butterfly came back and now I must let him go yet again. I have no choice.
I shouldn't be indulging in this awful act of auto-cannibalism but I am unable to do anything else right now. I am paralyzed with pain, fear, and regret. The fact that I can't say the words I want to say to him, that I can't tell him I love him because he doesn't love me, he will break me again... nay, he
has broken me again. He offered me the forbidden fruit and I gorged myself on it. Basking in the warm light of a world, a life, that I thought was unattainable and it was. I have been fooling myself, taking part in my make-believe world, playing house with him and letting myself believe that I have attained what I set out to attain. I allowed myself to think that I could be more, have more, if I was just patient and waited for him to realize what it was that I meant to him.
I have comforted myself by living in a dream and ignoring the consequences. I have brought this upon myself by trying to pluck the stars from the sky and he must never know. I cannot tell him what it is I feel, that is the one secret I keep to myself because to do anything else would cheapen what it was that I pretended I had and I don't want to taint the memories of my golden age.
Maybe it is because I am young, because I feel young, because my emotional growth halted when I turned 14, when what I had that was so precious was stolen from me by a cruel boy who thought I was ripe for the taking. In spirit, in experience I am not so young as people think I am, emotionally I have never progressed beyond being a child. Never learned to be an adult. A string of one night stands, of people who treated me like I was nothing more than a warm body to placate them for the time being. A thing
to be used and tossed aside when they were done with me. A life filled with friends and devoid of love, then him.
He has shined golden for me since I met him 7 years ago. He was the light at the end of my tunnel, he understood me and what's more, he accepted me. He didn't try to buy me, he didn't want to use me, he gave me something I didn't have and I offered him all I had to offer, my body but not my soul, my mind but not my heart... he took them anyhow. He didn't want my heart but he coaxed it from me almost without trying.
Then we fought, we fought and I won and lost. I won the the friendship of the person we fought over but I lost him and it almost killed me. It took me 6 months to be able to function like a normal person again and in those six months I came so close to killing myself that the blood was already dripping from my veins. I simply couldn't live without him, then I learned. I learned to survive to move on to be. Not to live but to function. The world was still gray, without him the color was gone, the wonder was gone. I led a life that people were jealous of, my ability to love and leave people behind without a second glance. My ability to always be surrounded by friends, by people who at least pretended they cared. Deep down... I never got over him.
Then the day came, 4 years later, 3.5 years since the lowest point in my life, he was back we formed a tentative friendship then we started sleeping together. And I broke my own rules. I slept with him more than 3 times, I let myself fall for him, I shared things with him I haven't shared with anyone ever, not even my best friend. I gave and gave until I was no longer myself and I let my guard down. I fell in love with him again. Hard. Harder than before, deeper than before, it was a rabbit hole and I fell so far down into a world of sunshine and smiles, I was living in one of my stories. The stories of love, the fairytales I love so much, pain wasn't there, anger, hurt, and sadness were banished. I haven't been sad since I started sleeping with him. I haven't hurt myself or cursed my existence. I have been... happy. It's a novel way for me to feel.
Now I am leaving and I feel the darkness descending as it is wont to do. I don't know what to do to stop it. My heart is breaking into a million pieces and it's a pain unlike any other I have experienced. I didn't know there was this kind of pain in the world, didn't know that anyone would be capable of bearing it but here I am, bearing it. I will, and I know I will be able to carry on, I just don't know if the colors will be as bright, I don't know if I will ever be happy again like I have been. I don't know if it is possible. It's like a dream, you wake and it starts to fade, but you know it was good because you remember pieces of it. The pieces don't make a comprehensive whole but they tantalize you with the possibility of knowing what it was that you were imagining while you were asleep.
This is my dream, realized, in the waking world. The dream of being worth something, of someone telling me I was worth something. However, I must remember this is not a movie, not a book, not a fairytale, it is simply life and the deck has been stacked against me since the beginning. It's like everyone at the table can count cards except me... and my poker face isn't working because they know the hand I have been dealt. I can't win, I can't do anything but keep on playing because I don't have a choice. I remember freedom, remember the light at the end of the tunnel, remember that someone was helping me at some point... but now it is back to the same old game.
I feel like I am dying and there is no one I can tell. This is death, true death, a waking, living death. This is what death feels like and I am loathe to give in but what choice do I have? I am too old and tired to fight it anymore. Just let me out of here, get me as far away as possible so I can start a new dream, a new game... one that will undoubtedly be stacked against me but a new game at the very least.
Tomorrow is my last day and our last kiss is still sweet on my lips. It will likely be gone tomorrow but for now it is here, it is here and that is all I can ask for, that it be here. That my golden boy will be with me in my dreams tonight because he can't be here in reality.
Oh the twisted web I weave when first I practice to deceive... myself.