130723/you were never mine, so good night and never mind
july 13. it feels like today should have been something auspicious. something about july 13 should have a memory attached to it, good or bad.
if i'm going to be crying all day because of missing you, it just feels like this day should mean something. it's been a long time since i've had a full day crying jag, but i guess you can never really fully change.
i really tried to keep my heart quiet and think about you as little as possible. the you that left, the you that got married, the you that procreated. (no, those aren't you. that isn’t the person that i loved [love?]) the idea that you were out there in a place that i couldn't reach has never been a comfortable one. granted, it was an agonizing state to be in when you were around more when we were younger. there were days i could hardly breathe, choked as i was with tears or the knowledge that one day reality, as i know it now, was coming. as a twenty something, i wanted nothing more than to be near you and to bask in your presence. it was only with you that i knew what peace and safety was. as a hopeless romantic, there have been times when i've tried to grasp and really understand such concepts, as foreign as they are, or where i've thought that i must have some kind of personal reference to such things. but when i think of happiness and security, in my whole life, i always only have one memory: you and me, lying in bed in the dark, face to face with my eyes closed and our foreheads touching with our breathing matching each other and your body close enough to feel the heat off your shoulders. that was the only time in my life that i knew what peace was, that i had the thought "this is what it means to be happy". but what is the point in remembering this? time has passed, he is dead, and all i have is the reality. he is dead and gone and i can't even miss him because he was never mine in any regards in the first place.
admittedly, even being able to just talk to you over sns was enough. i shared things with you that i had never with anyone else, even to this day. conversation and connection never seemed appealing to me until you. to be frank, it was an exhausting personal battle every time i interacted with you though, because i had to mind myself every second. don't say too much, don't do too much, don't need too much. my mind raced at almost every moment with all the words i wanted to say. i practiced in my head, refining and editing all the thoughts i wished to convey, that i was dying for you to know. my skin burned to hold your hand in mine, my body ached to hold you close to me. the times where i was able to do that were a poison. it allowed me to know the feeling of your skin against mine, the weight of your hand in mine, the strong warmth that seeped into me and that i did not want to let go. i learned what it felt like to have your back under my palms, how right it felt to be so close to you, and that the urge to keep away was not a constant thing like i'd thought. however, i did not want to express my feelings like that to someone who didn't even like me, much less someone i was not in a relationship with. my worst fear was to burden him with my feelings and i NEVER wanted him to have to go through the process of coming to terms with them, whatever that means.
the thing is, i didn't believe you had it in you to be cruel. sure, a few times i wanted to believe that you were a heartless, manipulative bastard who just did things as they amused you. sometimes, that even seemed true. but then i recall, it always felt like you were aware and mindful of me. that is part of what makes it so difficult, that you were so kind and compassionate to me. rose colored glasses or not, i can't help but remember the hundreds of times where i was happy that you were the one i loved, that i was comforted by the knowledge that the person who knew of my feeling wasn't an asshole. those moments where you let me take your hand or where you hugged me tightly really felt like you were telling me you knew how i felt and you weren't going to push me away because of it. my heart so badly wanted back then to believe those moments and many more were your way of calling out to me and opening the door. that you were trying to tell me over and over to just speak up, that you were ready and willing to take this where it could go, but i can't allow myself to get lost in daydreams and impossibilities. the fact remains that i was never going to be in his future. hypothesizing is pointless.
as time went on, it really felt like i thought about you less and less. what good is it in being heartbroken over a married dead man? i really must let it go. every now and again, you'd make your presence known and i'd have to repress you and it was just another way to remind me of things i refuse to regret but also refuse to remember. but there were weeks, even months i could go without sparing you a single thought. i wanted to be free of your haunting memory. i wanted to wipe my mind of you a la eternal sunshine. i guess i have, but this sharp, sudden onslaught of memories and heartbreak is just a reminder that it's never really all going to go away. i mean, it's never really felt like moving on or growing or healing or whatever, really more like repression and forcing myself to live each day, but either way it's the same. the void left by the removal of your presence remains. whether it's as plain and black as coal or as invisible and imperceptible as wind blowing through my fingers, it doesn't matter. there's nothing i can do but endure the vacancy that still remains in every part of me. sometimes, it's easy enough and sometimes, today happens. yes, this is the burden i signed up for.
it's not like i've stopped dreaming about you entirely. every now and again, maybe two, three times a year at most, you'd pop back up, my brain's way of torturing me with what ifs. they're hardly dreams because i was never under any illusions or dared to hope and it only takes a moment of being in them to realize they're not real. but then again, they're hardly nightmares either, because it really does feel like some part of my brain, that small part of me that still hopes and wants and needs, creates all this as a respite, a gift. in those dreams, it feels like something wants me to be happy or have some kind of love, even if it's just in my head, but even when i'm asleep, i can't allow myself that happiness or peace. it's really sick because it never seems to be a conscious effort, any of it. the dream starts and a second later, i'm trying to get away from your and/or out of the dream. i wish that i could allow myself this escape. i denied myself everything to do with you while you were still here, never wanting to be selfish for even a moment. i deny myself everything now that you're gone, in fear of regressing to that place i tried so hard to escape when you got on that plane. but even when i'm asleep, i can't give myself a break and respond to you. everything you do, no. everything the you in my dreams does, all the words of love and devotion, the endless chasing like we're in a movie, it hurts too much to even consider. he cries that he’s been looking for me, that he want to be with me, that he wants everything with me, that he needs me, that he loves me. and he smiles at me, so beautiful and genuine, and i hate my brain for trying to give me this because it just makes it all worse. but it's a never ending cycle of course, because it's all born from me, whether i want it or not. do i want? i must. deep down, i still want. oh, how badly do i still want and long for him. but this is just dwelling in misery, dreams will not help me with this. i cannot get trapped here.
this must be my own little purgatory. waking up, going through the motions, trying to work all while being bombarded with memories i thought i'd successfully forgotten. once started, they wouldn't stop. i'm flooded again with all these moments and once again pulled under to drown in the barrage. i really wish i could remember perfectly clearly or travel back in time to view these memories outside myself. did i really see things clearly? or did i perhaps willfully blind myself to any possibility that was screaming to be noticed? i'm dying to know what was real and what was, is even now, my heart wishing beyond all reason. all those times you talked to me, walked beside me, embraced me, laid your head on my lap, followed me, slept beside me, were they just the half hearted attempts of a lonely soul clinging to what was easily accessible? or were they perhaps your own quiet attempts at breaking through for something deeper? did you maybe feel the push too, even a little? i tell myself to stop dreaming and skewing reality. i tell myself to stop putting my delusions onto his actions and intentions (whatever they were). i tell myself that whatever it was, i knew then like i know now that nothing would ever come of it. i was not for him and i have never had any doubt about that. he is exactly where he is supposed to be. he's... he's dead. seeing that vision of his future in a dream only solidified back then what i already knew. our futures were not going to be intertwined. i really need to be straightened out.
but then i think about the gazes, the smiles, the hand you held out for me and wonder. why would you do that if it was all a game? i might think you're a bastard and misdirect my intense sorrow into anger that i don't really feel, but i cannot believe that you were ever such a horrible person. i just can't, not with all these images i have in my mind of you smiling and laughing and being so patient with me. then again, you did apologize to me, but i can hardly claim to really understand what you were apologizing for. you said you were sorry, i think you said that you didn't treat me well, but it's all very confusing to me and my memory is terrible. maybe you were apologizing because you WERE an asshole, but i cannot reconcile that with the image i have of you, as distorted as it has become. maybe i just won't reconcile it. the repression runs deeper than even i know. i have never known your heart and mind, not totally. that is my one regret, that i could not be completely open with you about everything and just ask you plain, because now all i'm left with is questions and a longing so terrible, i'm pulled apart, it seems, by my every atom. i'm really getting tired of this. the words that i wanted to say to him and that i want to say to him now just never run out. the script just goes on and on and the potential scenarios are never ending. why couldn't i just open my mouth and say everything to him back then? i want to say that i want to be free of him, but even typing that right now feels like a lie. i don't want to be free of him. i don't ever want to be free of him. i want that happiness and peace and serenity back. i want my soulmate back.
i tell myself again that this is ridiculous, it's been more than a decade now. what even is all this for? being completely genuine, the person i loved and remember and am tortured nightly by is dead. he got on a plane after quietly breathing out an "i love you" that i didn't know what to with as i desperately tried to keep myself together and then never came back. did he mean it? did he not? was it a game? i don't know and it DOES NOT MATTER. if he didn't care then, he most certainly doesn't care now. get over it! whether you still love and why even say that? you know that you do. it's pointless. he. does. not. exist. all this heartbreak and longing and dreaming and hoping leads nowhere. so what if you believe in anything like ishin-denshin or soulmates? he. is. dead. anything that remains, anybody that looks like him is just a specter, a trick, an echo of what was. you want to tattoo his memory onto your back and keep his things and play your music and love a ghost? fine, but we have branched into an alternate timeline. he does not exist here anymore and what does is another take on his character. there's no point in longing for and questioning a dead man.
i know it's futile, because i know my heart's deepest desire and need, but please, let me rest. i wanted to believe in reincarnation to keep hope alive we'd get another chance, even as small and beaten as that voice is, but it really doesn't matter. i can't stop my heart from desiring what it wants, but this life has been doomed since day 1 and when it ends, i'll have nothing but darkness without you. even if we are reborn, something tells me in my soul that this is pretty much going to be the status quo for eternity. something tells me that i am always going to be destined to letting you go and bearing a broken heart. it feels like the truth, like the way i've always known in this life that you were meant to go and find more than this, than me. i still wish nothing but the utmost happiness for you. while it hurts like nothing else to see you living a life i know nothing about, i cannot bring myself to wish ill on you. my heart feels as broken as it did when you walked through those doors and i had to keep from crying all over our friend's back seat, but i never ever want to be someone who does anything to harm you. i would do anything to bring you back to life and have a place at your side because nothing made me happier, but i must not do anything to disturb what's here now. i have to maintain distance. i have to keep away from you. i have to remain outside. i just want to talk to you, but i cannot contemplate breaching this silence. i- the words, they're coming again, this has to end.
since the moment i realized you were really going to be my one and only for my entire life, i knew the implications i'd have to bear for the rest of my life. as least, i thought i did (but, let's be honest, it's not like i chose to have my heart beat just for one person alone). i knew what it would mean to love only one person my whole life. at least, i thought i did (but, let's be real, i never wanted to love anyone in the first place because i have no idea how to love properly). i got on board with both eyes open and signed that contract willingly (i'm going to be honest, i'm still really glad it was you). i just didn't realize it'd be this hard still, even after all this time (i love you).
