I wrote this years ago during a super toxic time when I somehow got dragged into a toxic love triangle. I felt like it deserved to stop sitting in my drafts and be read. If it doesn’t feel like love, it isn’t.
We lose sleep over people who are losing sleep because of someone else. We love the versions we once knew, the ones that no longer exist. The pain is a bottomless hunger for a heart way out of reach. Hope is the medication we cling to, in order to bare yet another lonely night.
When staring up at the ceiling we retrace the many steps. When the exact words were spoken to cause the fatal collapse. What if you valued them more? What if you articulated your words a bit better? Would the outcome be vast? Perhaps, just maybe, they stare up at their ceiling too? Fingers have never typed a name into a search bar any faster. Taking a fine toothed comb over every selfie. Searching for a clue that gives way to this new found conclusion.
But then, you see it. A smile, and a new someone else.. The oblivious pain from before is multiplied by a thousand. You’ve. been. replaced. A non existent knife cuts a hole in your heart. Twisting and ripping until nothing is left. Until, at last, you feel hollow. The dead amongst the living. So you drink, and fuck, and find similar people. You can’t have the original, but surely a carbon copy could work? You miss the high they used to give, so you find other destructive outlets to curb it. Cigarettes, drugs a “friend” offered… Your new routine is to forget. Move on, and forget it ever happened.
Except, the song on the radio provokes an instant memory of them. The crooked smile unfolds for you as if it was really happening in front of your eyes. For the first time in months, you smile. You relish in the feeling, it’s as if you’ve gone home after a long winter. And then, you open your eyes to a somber reality. Just like that your favorite songs are ruined. All they do is haunt and bring on withdrawals for them. So you stop listening to music. And repeat your new routine.
Years go by, and you feel time has finally granted you healing. You’ve met someone, who isn’t at all like them, and you feel almost happy again. You take pictures, create new memories.. And then, years later, you get the text you wished for every time you blew out birthday candles. “I miss you.” It’s not even something to think through, you follow your heart. Letting new found love go and pursuing a well craved old love.
Except, to them, it’s always been just a game. Secrets, cheating, pushing you away, pulling you close. History repeats, you move on, they miss you. Without them you are numb and bitter. You stalk their social media regularly, and curse the world for making you fall in love. Becoming a shell with a stone heart and jaded perception. But, you’d rather have them for a split moment then none at all. You’d rather endure their torture than to ever live without knowing the small window of their love.
So, you convince yourself it will result in a happy ending sometime. Until chaos takes over, and they don’t know what they want. They can’t choose you over other multiples. (Even though you are always the common factor.) Still, nothing else matters to you than the random texts that give you just enough. Until, they post another picture. Where they are smiling, with yet another someone new. Despite the “I love you” text they sent just last night. And the night before when they kissed every inch of you and promised to treat you better. They are ‘just a friend’.. a friend who changed their status as “in a relationship” recently..
It’s painful, how much you love them. The truth stares you straight in the face, and what do you do? Ignore it. So what if they have another person to love. You’re better than them, a contender they couldn’t ever replace. You are valued.. surely? Cancelled plans, a background voice telling baby to come to bed.. Your baby? Chap-stick in the car, the kind you’ve always hated.. You go out to the bar and drink your sorrow away. It becomes all too real, as you look over and see it up close and personal. The someone new wrapped around your late night texter.
The one who loves you.. loved?
You are right….definitely not love. But something a few people I have known in my younger years have gone through. They pretended to listen to my concerns but I could tell in their eyes they weren’t listening to a thing I said because that toxic person had a hold on them.
Not a nice situation but a nice write where you could feel that toxic energy.