you, me, and the unknown

you’ve always known how to turn my world upside down. you have no problem tipping it over and emptying all the contents of my life onto the floor in front of me, leaving me to clean up the mess you made. leaving me to sort through the pieces of the devastation, trying to find some kind of true meaning behind your actions. you have the ability of a thousand asteroids on me, crashing into my soul and infiltrating it with ease. every word you say to me has the effect of a thousand more. every emotion when felt with you is felt by tenfold.

the first message was bad enough. it already had the ability to shatter my fragile heart after the initial heartbreak, and just when i thought the worst was over, you barge in yet again and prove me wrong. the second message was calamitous. the second was written with such raw, profound emotion that any and all of my previous suspicions of your feelings being fabricated for some ulterior motive were washed away immediately. there is no ambiguity anymore. the fog has parted and i can see you at the end of the path.

the first wasn’t enough, and the closure that it was supposed to bring only pushed opened the door further. now, we’re stuck between a rock and a hard place. a crevice of mixed emotions between two people who inexplicably managed to ruin each other beyond comprehension without knowing it. a tangible tension pollutes the air, thick and oppressive, uncertain yet certain at the same time. you are a solace in my life while simultaneously being the demon in my nightmares. how that can be is a mystery to me, but it is simply a truth that cannot be hidden.

in a short time from now, i will be face to face with you. i’ll be able to look into your eyes again and see the universe i always saw in them, something i thought i’d never do again. it petrifies me, because your presence might break down my walls. by willingly allowing myself to be in the same space as you, i am so incredibly vulnerable, susceptible to the darkest and most intimate of emotions.

the gray area has spread to cover all of the space between us. there is no black and white, no right or wrong. it’s gray because there is no telling how dangerous seeing each other for the first time in nine months is. it is unknown. as we all know, the unknown is to be feared.

 

–

E.L.

the remnants of you

there are people in this world that will leave a permanent impression upon your life. they will change you in ways you never could’ve imagined, they will make you feel new feelings that you never knew existed, they will plant themselves into your soul and their roots will never disappear from your soil. without a doubt, there is a person in this world that is capable of dealing such catastrophe to your existence.

for me, that person was him. 

i’m only 19; i had absolutely no idea that he would turn my world upside down. i never intended on letting him be that person, but i would quickly learn to realize that it’s not my decision to make. it’ll never be your decision to make. we can’t pick and choose who gets to affect us to this degree; that’s what makes us so vulnerable. these kinds of people tend to walk into your existence by accident, and you don’t realize just how crucial they are to your human experience until they set off a cosmic explosion in your stars. they form a galaxy in your universe, and then in just a blink of an eye, everything is different.

they may stay, they may drift, they may leave, but their impression won’t budge. it stays pressed into your being, delicately altering your chemistry. they are someone completely and utterly unique, and you will feel it in your gut. everything will feel like a dream when you are with them. it’s utter bliss, completely serene.

if you’re lucky, these people will never leave. they will burn bright and give you the light you need to flourish. but some of us are not that lucky, unfortunately, and we have to learn to deal with the absence of them. i was one of the unlucky ones. when he left, i wilted and decomposed, drifting among the unknown. he’s gone, and when given the opportunity to reconnect, i chose to never let him in again. it was one of the hardest decisions of my life.

but you have to trust your gut, and trust the world, because you have to have faith that there are others like him in this world like him. maybe not just like him, but just enough like him to cause another big bang. it’s blind instinct and pure risk.

even though he’s gone, shards of his words are cemented into my heart and flashes of the feelings he gave me pulse across my veins. he still affects me in inexplicable ways, nearly a year later.

there are remnants of him in my soul, and there always will be.

–

E.L.

calamity

nearly one year ago, you were my bright star in a dark night sky. from the moment we began, i knew there were sparks running between us, and i was ready to build upon them. i wanted to see how much of the world we could conquer together, to experience my life with you by my side, and i was so close to grasping that dream. but then, nine months ago, you burned out and left me alone with nothing besides the darkness. no goodbye, no explanation, not a single word. it ruined me, made me go insane, because i was baffled as to how i could possibly be the only one feelings those feelings. there was no way in this world that it wasn’t reciprocated. finally, i just accepted the fact that i was wrong, and that whatever sparks were electrocuting my soul were delusions. i was delusional. i hated myself for so long for thinking such a blasphemous possibility. how could i be so naive?

nine months later, you finally manned up and admitted your faults. you messaged me an apology that tore my heart up into pieces and shredded those pieces into oblivion. it was supposed to be closure, but it also reopened the wound i so diligently spent the past year sewing up with nothing but the threads of time. everything began to hurt again, because now i finally know that i wasn’t crazy. it was as real as i thought it was.

you ran from the perfect world we built in those few months because it was starting to become too real for you. you gave up on us so fast, without even giving it a chance. how you could’ve done that baffles me beyond comprehension. i wasn’t the only one that felt those feelings, you did too, but you passed up on the opportunity to chase it. sound familiar? the first time we ever met, i said i had a good feeling about you. remember what you said to that? you said that we should chase that feeling. in the end, i guess i was only chasing empty promises.

i discovered that i wasn’t the only one that was haunted by my past. you revealed to me that i ran through your mind constantly like you did mine, and that shook me to my core. i thought i was the only one replaying memories of us, constantly imagining scenarios that could’ve been reality if things had been different. if you hadn’t done what you did. we ruined each other, but in vastly different ways.

you knew that i was already going through a rough patch when you decided to kick up your roots and leave. the roots you had already let grow so deep into my soul. the roots that i let foster into my earth. you fucking knew that close friends of mine were dropping out of my life left and right, and you still decided to become one of them. that’s something i’m never going to be able to fully forgive. you knew, and you still did.

“I often wonder what it’d be like under different circumstances where I was a bigger person. That’s the world I wish I was in, I’m sorry that it’s not”

this is the part of your message that hurt me the most. it hurt me because i felt the same way you did, once upon a time. it hurt me because it validated the fact that you know what you’ve lost, and you’re hurting too because of your own mistake. it hurt because not too long ago, i wrote a blog post that ended in almost the exact same way. i guess we really are the same person. it hurt because we both know that it’s a fantasy, and the world we wish we were in is a world we’ll never be able to experience in our lifetimes.

your apology did so much more for me than simple closure. while it did help me lay my unease to rest, it also opened up an array of mixed emotions that i wasn’t able to access beforehand. a deeper, far more intricate level of heartbreak. learning the new information that you gave me has managed to simultaneously heal me and break me all over again.

nine months of being locked in a closet of uncertainty was punishment enough. you finally found the key, and set me free. i’m no longer burdened by the unknown. for that, i thank you.

and i forgive you. you did the unthinkable, you managed to wreck me in a way nobody else ever had in my entire existence. you fucked up and you know you did. but along my path to recovery, i learned and adopted a simple mindset. i stopped holding grudges, because as an already highly neurotic individual, being unforgiving exceeds the capacity of negative emotions that i can handle. not to say that you didn’t do a really, really shitty thing, but rather i can be at peace with your mistake now that i know you acknowledge your fault.

but today, i sit here writing this, and thinking about all of the possibilities you have opened up. we will never be anything more than or equal to what we once were, because it would be a massive betrayal to my own morals. but there is the option of a fresh start and a clean slate. maybe a friendship. to be staples in each others lives as support systems. this doesn’t have to be the last time i ever speak to you again. it’s just a question of whether i want that or not. something i have to answer with my own heart and mind. nobody can help me make this decision, because it’s far too important to let others sway my decision.

i sit and write this with the knowledge that i missed out on a connection that could’ve expanded and became something that could’ve made me whole. we both wanted that, but we were on different wavelengths the entire time. there was static noise that altered our frequencies, and it was the universe telling us that it wasn’t our time. but now that you’re back, the universe could be saying the opposite. there are so many things that the universe has done to show me that you are someone in my life that has fixated itself semi-permanently upon me.

i sit and write this knowing that i have so, so much more to think about. i sit knowing that i’m about to begin another journey of healing and self discovery, but this time, a different process. i have already experienced enough pain from such a journey, and this is the final, big step. i’m almost there. i’m side by side with nirvana and i just need the stormclouds to clear so i can see the peace i deserve. what the peace entails, however, remains a mystery to me for now. it could be a life with or without you in it.

either way, i lose. i played the game and fell in a loop of losing no matter my move.

–

E.L.

 

 

274 days

the last day i saw you in person was november 26, 2017. i remember this date because it was the last day that you felt like a real part of my life. the last time i got to be with you, have real, human contact with you. you became a ghost in my life after that day, haunting me the moment i left your apartment. the date you faded away and the period of time where my once perfect world became a very different, imperfect world.

the date is is august 27, 2018. i saw you today for the first time in 274 days. you were real, a physical being standing just feet away from me, and it hadn’t felt like that for just over nine months. up until now, you had only been a figment of my memories, my thoughts, and my dreams. as time passed by, you drifted off into a cognitive space composed of intangible memories, sort of like a piece of data lingering in the universe. but today, i was reminded that you are very much real, you are a person with a body and hair and arms and not just a part of my brain’s ramblings. it felt surreal seeing you there, and i momentarily ruled out the possibility of physically being near you again. in this time, i healed, slowly but surely, but no amount of healing prepared me for the epiphany of recognizing your physical presence in this world.

i always thought that the day i saw you again would result in my world crumbling down into the chaotic mess it was before my healing process, but it didn’t. maybe it’s because we didn’t interact, and i only saw you for seven seconds before my instincts told me to run and get as far away from you as possible, but it didn’t ruin me like i thought it would. this must be the universe telling me that the time has come for me to accept my past instead of fearing it. eight months of heartbreak, dreams about you that i consider to be nightmares, constantly having your name and your face and your voice run marathons across my mind, overthinking how we could’ve been something different and what went wrong, everything you ever did to me to hinder my growth as a person, it’s all over. i can breathe now. my healing process is complete.

i am a very different person than i was 274 days ago. i’m stronger, i’m more conscious, i’m more confident, and best of all, i’m thriving. i couldn’t ever hate you, even if i tried, but today, i feel liberated.

274 days was all it took for me to end this chapter of my life.

–

E.L.

 

 

your absence

used to haunt me. there wasn’t a day where the sun rose and set without your name, your face, your voice crossing my mind, lingering, until it was swept away in the wake of other thoughts. i would dream about you, about us together, and i would always wake up in a daze. i’d lay in bed, dumbfounded, even sad sometimes. those are the days that i would scroll through our old texts and bittersweetly reminisce on the days where you were a tangible part of my life. i didn’t understand it, i didn’t understand why, or what, and it’s simply a given that i won’t ever understand.

i think i’ve figured out how these types of things aren’t meant to be understood, but rather just accepted. i didn’t want to accept the fact that we weren’t meant to be. i didn’t want to accept the fact that i wasn’t ever going to see your smile again, or hear your laugh, or feel your touch. i didn’t want to accept the truth about how you simply weren’t ever going to be mine, no matter how desperately i wanted that to be the truth. i was living in a twisted fantasy, telling myself that this wasn’t, this couldn’t, this wouldn’t be the way that we ended. but i suppose that was just me in my denial stage. in the process of breaking free from your chains and running away from your shadow, i let you go.

you were a once-in-a-lifetime somebody that i’ll never be able to replace. i know for a fact that there isn’t anyone in this world that is just like you. for a moment, we were sparks in a fire, and we could’ve conquered the world if we wanted to. i’m certain of it. there was something there, and we both felt it. but before we could preserve it, it slipped away, never to be found again.

our time was short, too short; but it is what it is. i miss you, and i won’t ever stop missing you. maybe in another life, it would’ve been different.

i just wish it was in this life.

everlasting flux

we glide through our lives in a blur, blissfully ignorant to the fact that we’re passing by valuable memories without appreciating them for their worth. we are unaware of the fact that each and every second that we experience is unique to itself, and virtually impossible to re-create. though we are conscious beings, we seem to live in the unconscious; unaware of the fact that there are all of these precious moments all around us, all the time. we never realize just how much we should value these moments as we live through them, until they’re gone; it only becomes a conscious thought when we reminisce by looking at old photos and reading through old text messages, and it’s only then when we truly appreciate the high points in our lives like we should. like the sand in an hourglass running out, we let these memories slip out of our reach, and the sadness of the bitter reality hits us like a train wreck. but it’s only after the fact; it’s too late when we look in the past. all we can do now is wish for more memories like such to come our way, and to hope that we truly grasp their meaning before they become nothing but old memories.

 

–

E.L.