I vowed to stop myself from running after you, for you. I am silent because it’s all you’ve ever wanted from me as a whole human being. If you had it your way, I wouldn’t have relational needs, I’d forever act in alignment with the hierarchy that no longer exists between us, and I’d tie up the parts of myself that you avoid. I shrunk myself for so long, and even when trying to stay appropriate and contained, my anger burst from the seams — the very seams you created every time you connected and never followed up, took and did not give mutually, became vulnerable and then distant and inconsistent — and ensured my erasure from your life. I get it, you don’t accept my disrespect. It wasn’t palatable. I’m sorry I chose to let it out. I was trying to protect myself In the only way that part of myself knew how. My other parts hid behind my anger, behind everything, even before anger existed. Because they tried to tell you they were sad and you met us with assumptions, no direct clarity, and a claim that what I am to you is small, while the other things in your life are big. There was no promise of return from you either. I thought organic meant taking things slowly, a day at a time, responding even when things got messy…but to you, I now think it meant: without consistent effort, without holding one another in mind without physical presence, always waiting for me to meet you where you were, and never having to consider me or even asking me what I wanted or needed. You were the only one ever really allowed to act or talk without question or accountability. I was never mad or sad at the lack of support you did or could provide me. I only ever wanted to be seen as your equal, to know I mattered to you too, and to not be shut out when I allowed you into so much of my inner world. Even in the end, I let you see inside. Even in the clouds of shame and guilt and anger and sadness, I chose vulnerability while you chose a calculated coldness. And after all of it, I still miss the version of you who made me feel wanted, special, worthy of showing up for. That version of you was not afraid to show care and brightness, who wrote poems, connected and lost track of time, spoke with softness, chose to be accountable when it was difficult, kept chocolates on his desk, and awed in the presence of art and cute animals. I wonder where he went, and whether he really existed. Maybe I just became someone you didn't or couldn’t care about anymore. I wish you could feel the impact this is still having on me, just for a second. Because it’s too heavy to carry for long.
It is hard to believe in a world in which we don’t talk anymore. I put up with years of injustice from you, but the moment I’m angry after we reconnect, ugh. I don’t blame you, I know what I said was my fault. But I also know that you know that, because I told you. I said sorry, I said so much more than sorry, even when you never asked for it, even after you just decided that knowing me wasn’t worth it anymore. I guess my biggest wish would be that I wish you had thought I was worth holding accountable and worth reconciliation, and acted accordingly. The cognitive dissonance is driving me to want to walk away from the foundation you helped me create, built on the field we both loved. I don’t know that I love it anymore, or that I even belong in it really. This relationship has made me doubt so much of myself and the world around me. I feel sick with missing, longing, yearning — all for someone who most likely will never return, and will never exist in the same time and space as me again.
Maybe in secret, I also wish I never reached out for connection to you again, because the moment I messed up, it was game over. I didn’t know I wasn’t allowed to make a mistake. When I said I never needed an apology from you before, it was because all I wanted was your mutual truth, not covered up by your clinical speak. We were never playing on fair ground. It’s the one thing that made me feel used again. I’m pretty sure you don’t think of me often, and I am back to barely sleeping again. It hurts, and I miss you, and that hurts too.