tarynitup

I saw your picture.

I threw up.

Not out of disgust… but out of pain.

And it was only the thumbnail.

A footnote of a picture, if you will.

I used to be haunted by the images of you and how you made me feel.

Now, I don’t let myself remember what your face looks like.

What your voice sounds like.

How you felt or smelled.

I remember you as a shadow.

I remember you as someone I desperately wanted… to the point of being willing to change who I was.

I remember longing to just make your days easier, your life better. I thought the world of you and I would have spent forever running behind you, picking up messes as you made them.

I remember telling you over and over… I needed a title.

I remember the end of the 3 months, you saying “one day” it will happen… and you felt me pull away and instead of admitting you didn’t have the emotional capacity to have a relationship, you gave me just enough to stay.

You say you didn’t know how much it bothered me, but when a stripper in austin sparks the conversation… you knew.

I thought the only reason I was there was to let go of my anxiety with Danielle.

We met and after the lake, i cancelled on someone I knew before you.. and you were hanging out with the person before me still. Small world. People talk. At least the name names sense.

I cut things off with someone who hid how much they cared about me, and you accused me of not hurting anyone’s feelings for you- overlooking I broke someone’s heart for you.

You showed me how amazing your love was.

I just had to earn it. But I was wrong for needing loyalty proven?

Instead of calming my triggered insecurity, you showed me indifference and kept me a secret.

But sometimes – I wonder… could you have really faked ALL of it? The way you’d look at me… the way it felt being with you…

Your fucking eye creases… you can’t fake those in that way..

Maybe I really was in denial.

If I wasn’t on your social media- did I really think if the worst case scenario happened, they’d let me stay with them like ANY normal relationship 6m +!?

Everything blew up. You had my phone in the bathroom. I could have just said it was a normal relationship- but from the beginning, I wanted to tell you the truth. You could find out so much truth if you had tried- but you didn’t want to.

I deserved for the relationship to be over. It should have been when we were still not together 4 months into it but 3-4 trips deep. I didn’t deserve the in-and-out and being broken up with and then punished for what I did when you constantly broke up with me.

Do you know what that does to someone’s self esteem?

Their self worth?

I was showing humility and truly struggling but loving you enough to change for you and to be hurt by you and try to understand it…

You kept telling me at Wakaan you knew i still had something to tell you and to stay together- I’d have to tell you.

You have to see the corner you backed me into.

Either change your story or you lose me.

You tested my morals. Values. Limits. Boundaries.

Because you were fucking bored.

You’d send apologies I’d cry over and them take them back and justify it and I’d cry over that and then you’d tell me “I just want you to stop crying, I don’t want you to hurt”

You’d give me beautiful memories and confuse me with contradictions. Camping meant everything. I felt seen, you saw me with no anxiety and sometimes, I think you wanted to step up for me, but you couldn’t step up for yourself.

Then, I remind myself you didn’t want to at all, because you would have.

And my heart breaks all over.

So, I tell myself to see it for how it is.

My feelings were never first.

I was a replacement.

My name was a footnote.

I made you my story.

You kept me as a footnote.

I was hidden because I was never what you wanted.

I was a temporary fill-in, never to be who you wanted or who you’d settle down with.

You told me you’d never commit to me.

It wasn’t just about me.

I’ve accepted it. I loved someone that loved someone else but tried to love me.

So I replace the memories with a reminder.

It was real for me.

It was not real for you.

I was living in the Lover house… full of denial, asking to follow you everywhere.. saving you a seat in case you ever decided to show up for me…

A tolerated, broken toy.

An experiment to see how far my love would go.

Or was it?

How blatant could you tell me you love-bombed me, laid the plans for sabotage by knowing you’re making someone feel insecure and uneasy, and breadcrumbed me when you felt I was pulling away instead of being with me because you wanted to, putting me on your social because you wanted to, inviting me to Cali vibes because you wanted me to.

A cat and mouse message was the first one I had seen since you told me where the towels were- and it was the last one I’ve seen.

You watched me continue to paint you as the main character in my life and YOU LET ME.

I wasn’t even an extra in yours.

Loving someone in secret where they can’t tell anyone about it…

If I couldn’t tell my coworkers about a backpack, could I think you’d let the opportunity arise for more people to know we were together if I stayed with you?

I couldn’t bring myself to think more about a “cord cutting”.

Not because of religion or the fact that I think it’s kind of just bullshit and it’s our perception…

What if the invisible string theory is real.

That’s what I’d try to explain every time, every trip.

In every lifetime, there was an invisible string and inevitably, would lead to you.

The fact that i hesitated on the question if i wanted it told me it wouldn’t work if we did it anyway.

My brain works so fast to push the thoughts of you out. I see pictures and have to get rid of them. Finding things or clothes takes my breath away.