Still heartbroken

Dearest x

you keep telling the story
like you arrived carrying light,
like I was a condemned house
and you were the permit for demolition.
You call it rescue.
I keep looking through the rubble
for the place
where the saving happened.
Point to it.
Circle it in red.
Tell me which humiliation
was actually a blessing,
which betrayal
was secretly a staircase,
which night of sleep deprivation 
brought an epiphany. 
You say you found me broken.
Funny.
Because I remember arriving
with a pulse that still trusted,
a laugh that hadn’t learned
to apologize for taking up space,
a body that still believed
love and danger
were different addresses.
You didn’t stitch anything together.
You became fluent
in the architecture of my fractures,
learned exactly where to press
until I mistook surviving
for gratitude.
You called my shrinking
growth.
My silence
peace.
My confusion
proof that you knew me
better than I knew myself.
Tell me—
at what point
did disappearing
become self-improvement?
At what point
did walking on eggshells
become emotional maturity?
At what point
did fear
start wearing the mask
of intimacy?
I’m asking because
you seem convinced
you changed my life.
You did.
Just not in the direction
you think.
I spend mornings
untangling your voice
from my own.
I spend afternoons
haunted by flashbacks
of your raging tantrums.
I spend evenings
learning that love
doesn’t require
cross-examination.
So yes.
You changed my life.
You taught me
how easily a person
can mistake erosion
for evolution.
How someone can hand you
your own ashes
and insist
they’re building materials.
One last question.
You keep insisting
you improved my life.
Show your work.
Point to one belief
I didn’t have to reclaim.
One boundary
I didn’t have to rebuild.
One part of my body
you didn’t leave naked
with shame,
confusion,
or grief.
One version of myself
I didn’t spend months
trying to resurrect.
Just one.
I’ll wait.

—D.

Braxton, your favorite color is coral red. you love the red gatoraides with the “nipple caps”. if you’re not that Braxton and this still sounds like you, that’s insane, but anyways. I’ll always love you. I miss you more than anything, not our relationship. You were funny. When i needed a laugh you gave me one, i just miss that. I miss your laugh i miss that. i miss our friendship. I can now live without you, but sometimes something reminds me of you and i remember your laugh and i smile a little bit. Your smile made me happy. I’ll always love you platonically Braxton.

Today, I woke up in a perfectly made bed. Nobody snored in the middle of the night to wake me up, pulled on the sheets away from me, and I missed the imperfection of that. I get ready to go to work with the heaviness in my heart, no tears; they don’t come up. I am getting used to the new reality of being alone after 2.5 years relationship . No goodbye kiss before work. I looked at the kitchen window and remembered last summer, more chest pain, no tears. How has it been almost a month? I know I broke up with him and immediately regretted doing it, maybe because I was afraid of this. But now that you do not want to talk to me, it feels like a punishment. You want your space, and I’m honoring it, but how could you take the risk of losing me if you say you love me? I look at the window, and I don’t feel like yesterday, excited for better things to come my way, I look at the window and wonder how am I going to do summer without you? My eyes feel heavy. I need to go to work. I did not cry yesterday, but today, I cry while I write this. And maybe tomorrow would be different. Today, I miss you. Today and I cry.

I’m so heartbroken. You blindsided me so many times. Hurt, cheated, or so you told me. You lied to me about so many things just so you could make me move on quicker, you thought telling me you cheated would make me feel better. It didn’t. You were my first true love. My first kiss. A, you told me you would never cheat on me or hurt me. As of now I realized how much i needed you. You needed me. But you had moved on too quickly, only a week really. You went with your guy bestfriend. Which is never what should happen, you told me he was like a brother to you. It disgusts me how much I put down and avoided all the red flags.