I’m writing this in hope it never reaches you. In hope that my past remains my past and there is no consequence of this display.

I’ve finally repaired myself. I can see beyond the shadow of my failures with you. My naivety was such that my blind spot was massive. I actually believed there was something true there. Puppy love. Pure and unrelentless. I had drowned for a while but it's been a while since I’ve resurfaced. Now I’m out of the pool itself and I’m using this as a towel to dry myself up. I feel ashamed to admit that it took me a lot longer to forget you than for you to do the same. This line itself reminds me of my time of persevering self-pity. My most convenient scapegoat and the drastic effects it had on you.

There was poison placed in a bright red, heart-shaped vial. Each time the vial shone in my eyes, I took a bigger sip. I desperately wanted to have a story to tell- Having loved once and stayed true to it ever since. Having taken a bite of the forbidden apple with a want to make it my daily diet.

There was fear that underlined my need to hold onto you, or rather not be alone with myself.

I see my dear friends sprint head-on into the same path like I did. Where they worship their lovers and forget to develop a personality apart from them, I know they will be naked once life snatches it from them. Just like I once was. Just like you were for a while too. Just like we all have to be, in order to grow, even though none of us really want to, I made the mistake of viewing love as a product of myself and you, rather than me in my own space and you in yours like I was a climber plant that needed a host to balance on when we needed to sprout into two separate trees standing tall.

My lonely self would only provide for a facade of jealousy and bitterness to these friends. They are receiving attention, care and sexual validation and would be justified in calling me a cynic. I cannot feel what they feel for them. I can only be that friend who tried to prevent me from repeatedly going back to you. The one who, in hindsight, I’d have never listened to, whom I’d have resented inside. Like it is with anger, sadness, toxicity, drugs or any form of addiction. No amount of instruction or advice can give you insight till you go through it yourself.

I’ve become the culmination of my past positives and the shame of my current shortcomings. I don’t understand how life was the way it was. What drove me to leech on and why I was so private about all of it? There are days where it all comes back and I realise how easy it is to reminisce rather than make decisions while experiencing it.

I have a few faces that pop up in my head right now, who are going to look at me differently by the end of this passage. I wish I could explain to them that I’d rather take a bullet to my head than have toxicity seep into my muscles and marinate again. The man I am today would never settle for the temporary bandages to my previous abandonment issues.

For the longest time, I had forgotten how to find another person attractive, like withdrawing from a specific drug which got banned and had no substitute by which it could be replaced.

I was in a dreadful position of having a distorted, overpowering and unrelentless mind and I never missed the chance to remind you of it. I never missed the chance to say that I am suffering and that you are not a good enough antidote to it. I held it against you, against the world and if I’d go through it again I’d probably have done the same.

The other day, I was talking to someone really close to me. In an intimate moment, I said to them-

“Even though I hated her for not being there enough for me. I would never advise anyone to be in her position. I would never tell someone to try to fix someone who’s own mind does not know stability.”

This is just a sentence. It will take a few seconds to read. I had my heart travel chest up while formulating it and relentlessly throbbing in my throat while saying it out loud.

It was me saying even though I went through a flowing river of objective mental trauma whilst having an extra raging tributary of toxicity force the river to overflow and flood the shores of my being. I was wrong to be who I was and to expect what I expected. I was wrong to hold someone to a pedestal that they were not born to stand on. To hope that the red, heart-shaped vial from which I drank would be a remedy instead of a catalyst to more destruction.

From years spent in chase of something surreal and everlasting. The lesson I learnt is this -

You can only truly be in love with another if you’re already in love with yourself. Everything else is smoke and mirrors.

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