three's a crowd

it feels as if i am being edged out. people always say three’s a crowd. i think i am learning that they are right.

ah but what is there to do? (and i say it too much, i know.) maybe because i am lost. maybe because i can never figure out how the world works.

maybe because we were supposed to be otters holding hands in the void and never letting each other drift away, but somehow it seems as if they are drifting from me together, and i am reaching out. reaching my little otter hand to bring them back.

but i don’t think they are reaching out for me.

i doubt it’s on purpose. sometimes at least. but there’s something about how i will never be loved by them as they love each other. and somehow i know they will always love the other more than they could ever love me. if two of us were hanging off a cliff with no time to save both it is almost devastating to know i will be the one to fall.

i don’t know if it can be explained.

it’s like the lump in your throat when you know you’re about to cry. it’s like the feeling of tears in your eyes but hating them so bad because when your best friends fall in love you should be happy for them. right?

and i am? i think?

still, sometimes i feel every string in my heart pulled taunt, a thread seconds from snapping. and sometimes i shed the tears in the dark while they sleep entwined next to me, because i simply cannot stop thinking about how they will hold each other tight with tears in their eyes as they watch me fall.

it hurts to think you were tied only to be demoted to second.

it’s like i can never share their time. they will remember without me. i will be cut out of the memories because somehow i think my absence hurts me more than it will hurt them.

because they have each other now, right? and i don’t think my separation would hurt them nearly as much as a separation from each other.

i am stuck. stuck between craving the way it used to be and knowing that it will never be like that again, no matter what happens. i know i shouldn't be and i hate it i hate it i hate it because they are happy and that's all i want anyway but i think there is something about being slowly left behind that hurts so bad it makes your stomach twist and your throat ache and your heart slow down.

and fucking hell.

they will bask in a beach’s sun and i will sit alone in the dark.

they will fall asleep together and i will fall asleep alone.

they will laugh together and i will cry alone.

god. they will fucking share the world and i will walk it alone and they will be in love and i will be unloved and they will share their world they will share the peanut butter in the cabinet and the key to a house i may never see and the phone charger in the living room and the blanket on the couch and the fucking tshirt with the limes on it.

i’ll fade from their conversations

i will become someone too far away. someone outside of the joke.

god fucking stop this fucking stop this fucking stop this