Young Writers Society

At first I was shaking. The rage coursing through my wiry veins, pumping my heart with nothing but pure malice and spite and leaving a bitter taste behind. The aftertaste is the worst part, the sour blast tingling against my fresh taste buds, leaving me both intrigued and utterly confused.

I poured my heart out to you, and I was finally honest. Brutally honest, yet in the most non-brutal of ways. I told my side in the lightest way I could conjure, yet you still left me in the dark. You couldn’t confirm what I was feeling to be true, you couldn’t tell me how you felt, leaving the steel built walls towering over my body. You couldn’t just spit it out.

I fell so hard for you, I nearly broke all of my bones in a single moment’s lingering of the eyes. Wide and hopeful and seemingly innocent. I’d like to think that the entire world isn’t two-faced and ready to throw knives the second I turn my back. You throw that notion out the window.

Secondly, I was confused. Dumbfounded is an understatement. I gave you all of me, and you put in half of the effort, yet you felt so whole in those fleeting moments. I’m unsure if I was the one responsible for keeping the pieces together, and you fell apart if I faltered from your unruly expectations, or you were broken to begin with. Either way, you could have let me put you back together. But you wanted your heart to stay hidden away under lock and key, caged up and tossed to the back of the room, but these four white walls are pressing in on my sides, crushing me in their wake.

I keep running every single word you said over the currents in my never ceasing sea of confusion, yet I still drown in your dirtied waters. When we kissed it was like the world fell away. When our fingers intertwined it was like a door opened to my soul. When our bodies pressed against each other, I had never felt anything more whole and pure and right.

Until you started to take left turns.

Bliss and love and lust encompassed my every being when you showed your affection. Then your attachment started to wane, or so I thought, and I only pressed harder. I didn’t care if it would drive you away. The thought barely crossed my mind. I knew that if you cared, you would stay. No matter how much I was tugging and pulling at your shirt collar to be there for me, I figured you would stay.

I’m only so well versed with numbers.

And number one should have been the red flag that sent me running. You started being out of reach. Family issues, favors for those close to you, getting caught up- the excuses only last so long, my dear.

You said we could see each other. You said you were handling the job application at my place of work, the position I vouched to get for you. I put my job reputation out on the line for you. And how do you return the favor? You don’t reply when I text. You don’t answer my call. You drop off the grid, as if I don’t exist.

Did you fill out the assessment? Are we still on for dinner? Are you still living on planet earth among us?

You’re so out of reach I could scream.

So I challenge you on this. You don’t like what I have to say, even though you know I’m right. You know that I’m fully and wholeheartedly trying and being there for you, while you flake out and drift off into the breeze.

I could have kicked and screamed and bitten off your air-filled head, but instead when I saw those damn puppy dog eyes, I murmured, “I don’t want to make you late for practice.” Because I always put you first, yet somehow I finished out last.

You appeared devastated when I hopped in your car that day, but was it all an act? Were you only telling me what I wanted to hear, instead of what’s actually bouncing around in that mysterious brain of yours?

You said you’d always been non-receptive with your phone, not to take it personally, even though I’m your girlfriend. You said I was right and that you would change and that you were sorry. I even threw you a bone. I told you I was emotionally needy but I wanted to make this work.

You could have ripped the bandaid off right then and there, but no, you wanted to blast through an entire box before you were done with me. You could have told me you were afraid of commitment. You could have told me your ADD effects your life more than you let on. You could have told me I wasn’t important enough. You could have been honest about whatever it was, but you chose to keep it to yourself. You chose to leave out the truth. You chose to lie about how you really felt.You let me dangle on a single hope of holding on.

Red flag number two and three raised suspicion, but I wasn’t ready to let go just yet. And you didn’t appear as though you wanted to cut me off. You acted like you needed me from time to time. You acted like you were trying to change. You acted like you wanted me. I’m just not sure what part of the performance was fake.

Thirdly, I was defeated. I was accommodating to your flightiness. I let you fade in and out while I was pushed even further into the background. All I wanted was to be with you, our hearts beating to an uneven, pounding rhythm, raw and real like in the beginning.

I finally crumbled. I essentially let you know that I’m not stupid as you think I am. I asked you right to your face, and you pierced me with those dark, deceiving eyes.

“Are you really busy? I just, I don’t know, do you need space?”

“It has nothing to do with our relationship. I can promise you that.”

Empty promises fill me up to the brim, until my anger, hurt and rage spill over. You always said one thing and did another.

You told me you loved me. You told me I was your other half. You told me I was your one and only, but I’m not so sure that I was.

I told you I had enough. I told you I wasn’t going to wait around for you and spend days and nights wondering why you disappeared and popped back up, as if we could pick up where we left off. As if my heart wasn’t throbbing and worrying for you, your entire absence.

I was drained and hopeless yet hoping, and what do you say to me?

“I’m sorry you feel that way. I was faithful to you, and I really hope you were too. I hope you take good care.”

As if you weren’t the one dropping off the face of planet earth every other time we made plans.

As if I didn’t adore you and shower you in love and take your hits to the gut like I was meant to be a punching bag.

Lastly, I am hurt. I am lost in these thoughts of possibility and impossibility. I am still lost in your arms and eyes and warm skin. I am stumbling back down the path of who I used to be without you, and I know it’s best for me, but it’s far from the easiest. It’s the hardest it’s ever been in a long, long time. I wish I could have torn down those walls, bashed through them with a sledge hammer and get straight to your heart. You had to put up a front and wear armor, shutting me out like the rich shut out the homeless. Like the sun shuts out the moon. Like the fire that used to burn between us was extinguished by your hurricane.

I keep waiting for you to come back to me. I keep waiting for you to explain yourself. I keep waiting, waiting, waiting. I will wait no longer for you, my past love, because all I have done is wait for you. It’s time I stop waiting and start living.