Another Unspoken Letter To A Recurring Lover

People make it seem so easy to move on.

Rightfully holding on to the worst parts of others in order to let go.

Stacking them up at the end; preparing a convincing final statement.

But I hold on to the best parts in relationships.

Masochist that I am.

That might be why I always go back,

For a second or seventh chance.

Disillusioned time and time again.

Left to face the fact that you don’t make me happy,

& at this point I’m not sure you ever did.

So now I take the time to isolate and meditate on initial events in the timeline of you and I. Searching through those blurry bits my brain decided to keep for key indicators that will validate my ongoing misguided fascination with you.

Like the time, early on, when our friends forced us to ride with the couple as a christening of our nonexistent relationship. Held hostage in the backseat of the loudest car as we waited in a drive through during unholy hours of the night.

Finding solace in each other by exchanging phones to read our Pattern apps.

Inviting an unspoken hope that through an AI generated future, we’d be compatible in the long run. Instead of clocking this as one of our first fatal flaws, we looked to the stars for guidance and inadvertently accepted them as law.

I can't help but wonder if these innocent memories hold any weight to you?

Or weigh you down in any way.

If they are the reason why you don’t call me anymore after you’ve had a couple of lonely drinks.

The evolved ritual, from short term lovers murmuring sweet nothings into the phone to us intimately giggling into each others mouths, broken.

Are you now nauseated at how we used to tell each other “I love you” and mean it?

Or like me, do you try to decipher when spending quality time began to feel like a chore and frankly a bore.

We knew each other better than anyone in the world…. For a little while anyway.

But now I struggle to compliment that of you which other people know not of.

This unsavory necessity to explore you again and find parts of you to love that are unknown to others is less than favorable. But what else can be expected from someone that lets everything they love consume them?

Casual has never been a concept that I’ve been able to grasp. Not in fashion, not in lifestyle, and certainly not in relationships.

I know this as an ultimate truth about myself, how I’m an extremist at heart.

So why did I devalue your truth when you told me how you were in life and in love?

Was I already so jaded by then, that in that moment your words were fed into my internal monologue as filler?

All I knew was that I wanted to be with you, but I didn’t want to have to work out the specifics.

There I sat as you tried to set boundaries, idly shrugging at your questions and avoiding pinning down one of my many spiraling thoughts to contribute to the conversation. Just sat there hoping that we would get caught in a current and wash up somewhere desirable without having to work for it. Perpetuating the pattern instead of committing to a solution.

The weather has dropped, the moon is half full, and I’ve come to admit that I am the facilitator of a love life that consumes me in all the wrong ways. That leaves me bleeding out; too weak to fully invest in myself.