It was in a mild tempered night in July when you called me at 3 o’clock in the morning. You told me it was because of you – you couldn’t support me or love me enough – and despite my protests – you were determined to believe yourself to be not enough. We had previously broken up two weeks prior but had gotten back together. I was so happy, so grateful to have you back but you were so distant and I found could no longer reach you. I was so tired of holding on for you, so I loosened my grip and let you fall from my fingertips.
Despite my being devastated, I was determined to go on with my life. So I cleansed my home of you, until all that was left were six paperbacks, a Polaroid and a little note requesting kisses. I needed to reclaim every street in this goddamn town – every store we visited, every cinema we sat in, and every park we kissed in – I needed to reclaim it all. So I bought two tubes of pale pink lipstick and refilled my metro card and went on my pretty little adventures. To the city to wander and sob in the bookstores we had once kissed gingerly in and touched our fingertips together shyly. I caught the train home and a happy couple sat down right in front of me pressing their noses and lips against each other. How cruel a sense of humour God must have. I felt an ache underneath my breastbone and cried silently until I was home again.
My friends all told me you were an idiot. My mother told me to move on. My sister rolled her eyes and cursed you with a sigh. But I was determined to wait for you at the bottom of the ocean, with my heart fractured in twelve places; alas, you didn’t come. I loved you, you fool – why didn’t you come?
I tried to gently reminded you of my charms and quirks: reading tarot cards underneath candlelight, reading 20th century novels, drawing foul looking faces onto paper. But in the end you didn’t need me the way that I needed you; you didn’t want me the way that I wanted you. And not even the tarot cards could’ve predicted our downfall. So I keep on writing bad love poetry, just until it doesn’t hurt so much, and I take long walks in the hills getting lost in memories of you and I – and why, oh why, did I not give you space? Why did I get angry over the littlest things? Why didn’t I love you the way you wanted to be? Oh babe, I know I’m pathetic but we lived many months in secluded intensity and I need my fix. I’m a junky and you’re the spoon and the needle.
As I walked home in the evenings, I looked up to the darkening skies and wondered if you missed me as much as I missed you. I wondered if you regretted it. I wondered if you could go back in time, if you would change a thing? I wondered if you were hurting as much as I was. It’d kill me to know that you were hurting as much as I was. I guess that means I still care. I hope you’re happy now; you broke my heart and in doing so you did the same to yours.
I search endlessly in the crowds for you, but no face is quite as striking; no smile quite as mischievous; no gait as clumsy; no conversation as charming. I can’t look at any other boy without searching for your features in their bodies. I don’t want to ever forget your dark hair curling over your left eye, the perfect curvature of your nose, nor the plumpness of your bottom lip. I don’t want to forget the places on your body where I liked to kiss: your collarbone, your chest, your neck and your broken back. I don’t want to forget the scar on your hand where you fell to Earth from the top of a tree; the scar that signified you as God’s gift to me. And I hope this doesn’t make you too uneasy but I can’t stop thinking about you with your clothes off; that body you prodded and pinched at with discontent – was the body I hungered most for and still do.
And if you asked me to take you back, I’d come running; my heart is as loyal as a dog. Everyday I play out dark fantasies in my head where you win me back. All the different ways you could do it, but they do no good at all; they just make me cry some more, knowing you’ll never come back to me. I call you from the darkness in my bed at night, but you don’t ever come.
It certainly doesn’t help that everything I do and everything I consume reminds me of you. There is no rest from you, ghoulish lover of mine. I saw the bus that you catch to your house the other day, and as I caught mine, I cried big, heavy sobs until I could get home and soothe myself. Endless amounts of sugary sweets and sleepless nights can’t seem to stop me from missing you. Long walks just lead me to empty parking lots where I can throw myself onto the tarmac and howl and writhe in pain. I wish I could take a trip – somewhere warm and where I can dip myself into the saltwater and wash you away from me.
In the end I can’t decide what I mourn the most: the memories we made or the dreams we dreamed together. Were we no good together? I suppose not. We were our own undoing and we forged for each other paths of destruction. But still, I’d sell my body and my soul to the devil to just have one more happy day with you.
A love letter to my ex
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