Still mine, in my head

There's this recollection that keeps haunting me. It's me, in front of his door, my fingers shaking and puffy eyes from crying even before I knocked. I remember how I continued to wipe my hands on my jeans as if that would make me any less desperate. That was some seven months ago, just after he told me it was over.

---

---

We were together for nine years and I've loved him for ten. That's more than a third of my life, spent loving one person, choosing him every single day. I can't even remember who I was before him, all the version of me I've become, they were shaped around and for him, and that's why when he said I was "too much", it felt like he was stripping me bare. He told me that i was too clingy, said I made him feel suffocated, said I needed him too much but isn't that what love is? Needing someone, depending on them, wanting to be part of their everyday? Maybe I misunderstood, I just loved him the way I hoped someone would love back.

I kept hoping he'd come back, thinking maybe he was jusy upset and that after few days of silence, he'd return like he always did, with eyes full of guilt and his soft voice, saying my name the way he used to when we were wrapped up in each other at night, I thought everything would fall back into place. But he didn't come, so I went to him. I lost count of how many times. Four, five, six.....more?. I once sat outside his apartment for nearly three hours in the rain. I left him voicemails.

He visited me once when I ended up in the hospital . He sat beside my bed with this look on his face -part worry and part pity. He touched my wrist gently and said "You need help, not me. I can't fix this". That hurt more than when he said it was over. I thought if I hurt myself, he'll finally understand how much I needed him, that maybe it would stir something in him deep enough to pull him back, but even then, even at my lowest, he was already halfway out the door.

I didn't want to move on. God, I hate when people said that. Move on to what? To who? How do you build something new when all your blueprints are stained with memories of him?. And while I was there, breaking myself apart in a hundred ways to try to feel whole again, he found someone else. He found her, like it wasn't a big deal, like it didn't destroy something sacred, like he wasn't still mine in my head

When I found out, I laughed first. It was that bitter kind of laugh. Then I went back to him again, I told him I'll change, that I'll stop being clingy, I said I finally understood what he needed, that I'd give him space, boundaries and anything else he wanted if he'd just take my back. I didn't even know where to begin, but he had already moved on. He didn't get angry at me showing up everyday, he was just tired, tired of me showing up, tired of saying the same thing, tired of seeming like a villian in my story.

Today.... he's marrying her. I know I shouldn't know where or when but I do. I know the venue, the color of the event and even what cake flavour that chose, I saw it on her Instagram last week, I've been watching from a distance, quietly and pathetically. I never stopped looking even when it stings.

And me? I'm just here. In the same room I've always been in, with all the notes I wrote and never sent, with all the what ifs. I still sleep with the hoodie he left at my place a year ago, still check his page even though it's private now, still cry into my pillow some nights and pretend it's his chest. He used to call me "sunlight", isn't that funny? He said I made everything warmer but now I just feel cold

I thought of going to the wedding to still beg him, lol, but I'm not going to his wedding. I've decided to let go of him, not because I want to or because my love for him is gone, but because I need to. I know he'll never be mine again, he's promising forever to someone else right now

---

---

So, this is it, the last time I'll cry over someone who doesn't love me back, the last day I spend waiting for a door that's already closed

Images were generated using META AI

Posted Using INLEO