She Was.

It’s over.

And I am in the process of organising my life into neatly folded piles. Piles I will carefully place in sturdy brown boxes. Then, I will silently watch as strangers lug my life not so carefully onto a ship where it will flail about on the ocean for three months before it lands back on my shore on the other side of the world.

And what will I do with it then?

My days are full of goodbyes and last times and tears that come swift and hot. Tears that I cannot, will not, hold back.

I feel broken. I am broken.

I dont know what to do with this love that wakes me up at night to stroke my cheek and tell me I’m no longer wanted.  I dont know how to be without my best friend, my lover, my heart. I’ve lost my fucking heart. I don’t know what to do with the kindness of friends who hold my hand and let me cry and cry with me. All these things I’ve never had before. So much love. I am so full of this broken love.

I’m crying for the three women that sat with me, that held my hair back as I vomited, that fed me, that listened as I wailed, that let me sleep without leaving me. I’m crying for the mother I never had that I love so much, that I can’t bear to leave. I’m crying for the friend, who has been here every minute of every day, who forced me to shower and cleaned my house for me as I slept. I’m crying because it feels so much like someone has died, but in truth it is just my fiercely full heart that is broken.

Broken.

I’m just so fucking broken.

One of my truth’s is that I am pissed off.

I am pissed off that this time that I am stuck in refuses to pass. I am pissed off that I am pissed off. I am pissed off for being childish and churlish and immature and so full of angry hurt that I can’t sleep at night.

I am pissed off at every bastard I dated before you. I am pissed off for all the times I was let down and disappointed and deceived. I am pissed off for all the times I felt not good enough and cliched and stupid. I am pissed off for having wasted time and love and energy and effort and good will and tears. I am angry for all the wasted sadness. I am pissed off that the past never dies. I am pissed off that it carries forward into my today, for each particle of their (your) shit that leeched its way into my oh so fucking soft skin.

I am pissed off that love wont die even when I want it too. I am pissed off that forgiveness comes too easily. I am pissed off for ever having loved in the first place, for ever having risked, for ever having bothered.

I am really pissed off because I have lost my voice. And in it’s place lies a wail and a nag, a lamentation that I just cant bear. I am tired of hearing a plainitive ‘but I love him’ repeated over and over in my head. I am pissed off that this is all I can manage. This list of complaints. This anger. I am tired of this muteness.

And I am pissed off at you. Yes, you.

I’m pissed off at your absence.

I’m pissed off that you fail to care.

I’m pissed off that you haven’t noticed.

I’m pissed off that you don’t listen.

I’m pissed off because you let it slip.

I’m pissed off because you are constantly distracted.

I am pissed off because you are not you anymore.

I am pissed off because you have put me in this position.

Fuck yes, you’re right, I am pissed off at you.

But mostly I am pissed off at myself. Almightily, fucking over the top, furiously, outrageously, pissed off at myself.

For fighting for something, I can’t seem to win, against someone, I can’t seem to beat.

For not shutting the fuck up.

For not being more patient.

For not being able to have a single coherent thought.

For allowing this in the first place.

For every useless mistake I’ve ever made.

For blaming myself for it all.

For not being able to make a decision and stick to it.

For being confused.

For having cancelled my ticket last March.

For not having booked a ticket earlier.

For coming in the first place.

For staying.

For wanting to stay.

For needing your arms around me at night.

For noticing the changes in you.

For not noticing the effort you make.

For getting angry and then immediately feeling sad.

For not being able to make things right – at least with myself.

For being needy.

For being insecure.

For not taking chances.

For writing this post and hoping you will read it and it will make some sort of fucking difference.

For not being able to write something worthwhile.

For caring so fucking much.

For being vulnerable.

For fucking being who I am. For being me.

For this self loathing. That I blame us both for. For that. And for this too.

**

Image found here.

There is balance in everything if you know how to look.

In the scraped knees and the too short skirts, in the stringy blonde hair and the holding of hands. In the burning sick and the uncoiled spring. In the please fuck me nights, and, the absence in your mornings. In the blood poring from my mouth and a stranger’s kisses on my cheek, my lips, not your hands in my hair. Inappropriate and not wanted. In the kindness of their tears and the futility of missed calls. In the furtive late night tiptoeing and the messages that she sends. The binaries are there. You just have to know how to look. And strangely there is a comfort in that. It doesn’t sustain me and I don’t want to know, but I need to know, obsessively check because I want to haunt you too because there is so much love and you know that and I know that and I know how much you want this and I don’t want to be hatred and I don’t know how to be love and I don’t know how to be trust or forgiveness or all those other adult things I’m supposed to be. Because I wanted to be loved. And just like the rest of us maybe she just wants to be beautiful and I want to be special but not for just anyone. Because that is too easy and comes too fast. It has to be of my own choosing and you have to stop what you are doing because then I will too and it really will be a shame because it was always better when it’s too late.

And somewhere in all that there is a stillness. A perfect ending carried out to you in someone else’s arms. Cradled. A perfectly small closing in on you ending, and he looks at you with sorrow in his eyes and he tells you that he couldn’t save it. That he tried. That we tried. That I was brave. That we fought hard and long and I lost it. I couldn’t keep it together and he didn’t know what to do but he tried so hard and the blood shocks you and you can’t take your eyes of his gloved hands and our fucking ending just sits there and you stare and you realise that you wanted it too and you know in that moment what we have known all along and that is that you weren’t there. And as he asks you to take care of me, you silently nod your head – offended and I wonder why.

And just like that it’s gone. They’re all gone. And I’m better and we are better and all that is left is the two of us.

**

Photograph by Katie Tegtmeyer