The shadow of you

I try to rehash the day I knew you didn’t want to be with me anymore. Your friends came up and told me that I should look out, I should anticipate that you were talking to someone else. And there was really no good way to confront what exactly was happening. So it seemed most logical to catch you in the act of doing it versus just attempting to guess based on the circumstances. It was like hard proof was the only way to really prove it to myself.

I remember how much you made me feel like I was in the wrong. Like I was crazy for creeping on you even though you were doing something that was wrong. You made me feel like a fool. Like some washed up kid who had no idea that she could be played. Like I was just along for the ride of your deceit after all that we had been through. People at your school thought I was an idiot. People at my school thought that I was gullible. I mean, 4 years. Why? Why did we even decide that that was a good idea? Dedicating oneself to something, truly believing that this was the end all be all? Why? Was it easier to believe that it was worth it, not knowing the damage it would cause?

I gave myself to you. Like everything, every little facet of my being so much so that it made me ill when I realized you gave that up for someone else. And then you dated her after me. So just in case there were any doubts that you may not have been into her, you made sure to double down. And I remember I hated her for that. Thought she was a slut. Thought she was the one who interjected herself in our relationship. All the f*cks that I figured should be directed at her, when they should have been directed at you.

You made me look weak. And did you ever once think about how that would affect my future self? If you had just told the truth to me then maybe my future relationships wouldn’t have been a mockery of insecurity and intentional self deprecation. Maybe I would have thought myself worthy of something more than minimal, more than bullshit, more than checking phones and questioning whereabouts and finding makeup that’s not my own on other boyfriends’ pillowcases. Maybe I would have chosen differently.

Or maybe I would have even chosen to just be by myself. But I couldn’t because I got lost in you, thinking that I had to share myself with someone else so deeply in order for me to gauge who I really was as a person.

It took me years to realize that I didn’t need a second half. It took me years to realize that I still harbor shame for something that I wasn’t even really responsible for. And shame for continuing to think of you.

Why won’t you get the f*ck out of my head even to this day? Why are you still in my dreams? Even after all this time I am still left with the shadow of you, which hurts even more than that first realization you didn’t want to be with me anymore.