A Dear John Letter

"Why did you guys break up?"
She laughed, almost painfully.  "One day he loved me, the next day he didn't.  Strange isn't it?  How fast someone's feelings can change and then there's nothing you can do but accept it."

I took a shower.  I paced.  I sat down.  I stood up.  I tried to shake the ghost of you from my every waking thought.  Tucked away in my head, in the dusty cobwebbed corners I try to avoid, I already knew - one day, I would.  One day, I will miss your face a little less.  That one day I would wake, drink my coffee, shower, and leave the house and you will have not crossed my mind.  Not even once.

Today was not that day. 

But does it even matter?  You've taken the last bit of trust I had for you, and washed it off in the shower you share with someone else.  You're way too busy to remember to remember me.  And how could you be there for me now, if you were never even there for me when you were here?

I have late night conversations with my dog.  He tells me how much he missed me when I was away and I tell him about you and how I want to take back the secrets I told you so I can decide now whether or not to tell you them again.  I want to take back the piece of me that lies in you, to see if I truly miss it.  I want to take back at least half the confessions, because I would feel safer knowing where my secrets are.  I want to shake you and tell you that you're an idiot.   

I was never a traveler, but my mind was always unsettled and wandering.  And then I met you, and nothing seemed as aimless as it was before.

If I knew that that was going to be the last time I'd ever touch you, I would have hugged you so much longer.  I don't think I would've ever let you go.  And if I knew that was the last real conversation we were ever going to have where we shared our dreams and laughed and were real with each other without a string of obscenities flying out of my mouth, I would have never stopped talking.  If I knew that you weren't coming back, I swear I would've told you that you were the only person I have ever felt connected with and that you were my home.  I would have told you that your face was my favorite movie to watch and that your voice was my favorite song and that I could listen to you talking to me always.  That your kiss felt like a resuscitation at the end of a bland day.  But would that have made a difference? 

I want to do silly things with you and not have to pretend that I know and don't care that your sun doesn't set for me;  just have fun and go with it.  Kiss a lot and hold hands and make fun of everyone in the movies because we're better than them and then take you to the other room and fuck you like there's nothing left in the world but you and I.  

I keep thinking back to a night on your couch when I had popped a raisin in my mouth and you watched with amusement as I tried to hide the look of disgust on my face;  I was trying to train myself to like them so I didn't feel so betrayed that they weren't chocolate chips. 

Long ago, I loved raisins; but once, in second grade I ate a box during snack time and I threw them up in front of the whole class;  and that was the last time I would even look at them until that day when I suddenly decided that I'd like to try to move on. 

I want to get it through my damn head -  all the things you said; and some you didn't have to.  More than anything, I want to show you how unbelievably contradictory you are. 

You told me that I was silly, and if I didn't like something that it was okay not to like it.  I said that's not how I work;  I made that same face again today but this time I wasn't eating a raisin.  And that's why I've written you this letter and that's why you're gone.  

I had called you a good person and you had already called me a cab and slipped the driver an address to the corner of Love and A Better Man. 

Because you can't be a raisin.  

I buried you.  I had a funeral for you in my soul.  It was quite lovely.  I had to, it was a matter of life and death.  Yours or mine.  And I decided that I wanted to live.  I think I've finally learned to kill the part of me that still wanted to save you after you walked away while I was drowning.  You were an ass.  You made sure I fell for you and you weren't even there to catch me.

Worst of all, you made me trust you.  You made me think you weren't like all the others.  And you know what?  You aren't like all the others.  You are so much worse.  The best feeling in the world is looking at the person who fucking destroyed you and not feeling a damn thing.  I pray with every atom of my being that this day comes sooner than later, it's really exhausting to feel the battle ax that you tore my heart out with sticking out of my chest almost constantly.

I want this up and down to stop.  Just Stop.  If you're going to push me away, I want you to truly be gone.  I want to punch you.  Hard.  I want this hurt to cease.  But I can't make it stop no matter what I do.  I made a promise to myself that if you can live without me, that I would live without you.  I deserve better than half measures.  And even more, I deserve better than my reaction to it.  I won't apologize for evolving past your comfort zone.   

And now that I broke, screamed, ugly cried and then fabulously am getting over you, I feel great knowing I'm sure our paths will never cross.  I had hoped the day would never come where I was only a part of your past, but now that it has I hope that the thought of me awakens the part of your heart you kept dormant when I wanted a home there and it kills you. 

I think it's finally okay if I never forget you;  that you'll forever be a puncture in my lungs.  When people speak your name I'll squeeze out the song of us like a dusty accordion and I'll tell them I don't know what became of you but that I can still feel your hands on my skin.   

I'm moving on.  It's not that I've stopped loving you, it's that I know eventually I'll stop wanting it in return.