I hate you. It sounds extreme but it’s true. You took everything that I once loved and ruined them. Or maybe I did when I let you into my world and showed you things I’d never shown anyone else. Maybe the person I hate the most in all of this is me because I was the one who decided to love you without boundaries. I was the one who integrated you into every piece of my life. I was the one who pressured you to do better, be better and live better.

I’ll admit it, you had me fooled. Your narcissistic traits were almost easily covered by smooth words and quick glimpses of a boy who just wanted to be loved. I wish I had known exactly what I was getting myself into at that time because maybe instead of falling in love with you, I would have seen you for what you were.

But the sad thing is that I can’t say that I don’t still want you. That there aren’t days that I wake up and miss you. I can’t say that since the moment you left, there have been moments where I feel like I’ll never fully heal and be the person I used to be. Being that person would take erasing you completely and I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to do that even though I wish I could.

You were not the hero of my story. You weren’t the villain either. You were a temporary roadblock to my destination that is taking me too long to detour around. Because not only did you waste a year of my life by being in it, you’re wasting my time now because I’m still getting over you. I’m still trying to make it through each and every day with the little reminders that constantly pop up and scream that you’re gone. I know you’re gone. I know it’s healthy that you’re gone.

But still, I crave you.

I want you to come into my house like you used to without knocking. I want to be able to look up from my book and see you in the kitchen doing something menial like cleaning and think how it just seems natural for you to be here. I want to wrap my fingers in the curls you hated so much and think about how adorable I thought they were.

But we can’t. We can’t go back. I feel like I can’t even move forward. I’m stuck in this dead relationship purgatory where there’s just nothing. There’s no you. There’s no me. There’s just unknown.

Maybe that’s an OK place to be right now because even though it’s taking forever to get over wanting you, it’s the right call. It’s the right call that we’re no longer involved in each other’s lives. We were toxic for each other no matter how good that chemistry felt. We were not each other’s forever’s even though for a brief second it might have felt like it.

Even though remembering those moments feel pretty good for a minute and I remember how I still want you, there are reasons why I can’t anymore.

I don’t know why I still want you even though you hurt me. All I know is that you and those feelings of craving belong behind me.