bad nights

Was this ever something more to you: Or was I just broken and pathetic enough to be easily played? Did you ever even like me? Using the same words that you shared with her and the same key moves: the beginning love-bombing stages, the happiness to simply be around us, the eventual bread-crumbing and ending with tears and proclamations of false love? Then the thin string to keep us quiet: I love you, but we can’t be.

Leading to: I’m just really busy.

And it’s funny, I asked you once during a freezing winter day. We were walking to the building I had settled in and I asked you if that’s how you would leave me, too: In a world where I was ignored until I would no longer reach out, and you behind the guise of being just too busy to interact. (when I knew from my experiences that you were teasing me from across the room, hiding kisses behind elevator or locked rooms.)

Even now I wonder: I wonder who it is now? Is it her again, or someone new?

Or I think even more: Perhaps you were always with this person - I saw the beginnings echoed in the way it was with me.

I wondered all this a year ago now and the difference now is I’m dried out from tears.

I will no longer beg just to be seen. I will no longer believe the little kernels of faux appreciation when I’m simply a warm body to distract you from your own pain. I accept what I am: A nobody. An easy moment of pleasure just so desperately alone you know I’ll crumble.

And then the even bigger truth: It’s not even me, it’s the fear of what I hold.

But nothing changed then, and nothing will now. What benefit would I have for hurting you and others? I’m that splinter in the trees that are climbed, the doorknob catching your sleeve. I’m nobody. Not even someone to be loved, not truly.

When I could have been: I was reminded - no, you were only ever meant to be a convenience.

I feel needy simply needing connection. For wanting to feel like I ever meant something more.

Damn.

I kind of wish I was dead.

What loss would there be?

I want to be better. But it’s terrifying to put so much work into unlearning the entirety of who I am only to have it reaffirmed in how insignificant I am. How little I have to offer.

Gosh, my mind is cruel.