When You Left, You Took It All With You

On the day you left me, you filled up boxes and bags with your belongings and said goodbye to our home. When I came back that day, I was not greeted by your normal presence, but instead met with an unmissable absence. The apartment that used to be ours was now only mine, and it came with a half empty closet, a television without an xbox, and a double bed with only one duvet and pillow.

But it was okay, I was prepared for that move. I had seen you box down and label your clothes, and I had been with you when you ordered your moving van. We had sat down together in the living room and gone through all of our belongings, deciding who got to keep what and what you were bringing with you. I knew it was going to happen, no matter what I said or did, so I found it easiest just to accept it.

But what I was not prepared for was you taking away so much more than what we had agreed upon. So many essential items that I had not allowed you to take away from me were suddenly missing. Tucked between your shirts and jeans, you had taken away some things so much more valuable.

The first thing I noticed was how you had taken away my happiness. It took a good few days of convincing everyone I was fine until I realised I wasn’t. Something was missing, and it was more than your body next to mine sound asleep. You had left me and taken with you my happiness and motivation, leaving me an emotional mess but not bothering to do any damage control. When I called you in tears you said there was nothing you could do. That I would just have to move on and start anew. But how was I supposed to look ahead and move on when every plan for my future had you in it?

Then I realised how you had also taken away my consistent and safe sleeping pattern, and swapped it with an uncontrollable schedule which left me up all night and tired all day. The few times I finally got some hours of sleep, my usual dreams were all replaced by horrible nightmares. I couldn’t decide which was worse, staying awake begging for some sleep, or being haunted by nightmares crying for it to be over. What was even worse, was that while I was suffering from my insomnia, you were far away in a stranger’s bed calmly breathing in and out the uninterrupted nights of sleep that I had spent so long perfecting.

But not only did you take away my inner peace and happiness. Somehow you also got the control over my appetite, and therefore started shaping and reshaping my appearance. Some weeks I wouldn’t eat at all, while others I would binge. You would make my body show bones I had never seen before, before covering it all up with flesh as raw as my heartbreak. Maybe it was the fat of my body making me look so different, or maybe it was actually my heart, shrinking and growing, breaking and healing, alongside my pain.

But the worst part was not losing control over my body. Nor was it the lack of sleep and happiness. The worst part was that, no matter what was going on, it was always about you. You were all I could think of. If I could not sleep it was because you were on my mind. If I had nightmares they were about you. If my body looked different, all I could think about was what you would have thought of it. If you would have liked me better. If maybe you had not left me if I had always been this skinny. If I should text you, just to see. Take a photo, and say that my body missed yours. Maybe you didn’t love me anymore, but at least I knew that you still loved and longed for my body. Maybe I could keep you for a while longer, if only for one night.

Because in the end, I did not care that you took the xbox. Or the speakers. Or even the shirt I loved to borrow. All I cared about was you. All that was missing was you. When you left, you took it all with you. And all I was left with was a person I could not even recognize in the mirror. A person I only knew with and through you, always by your side. A person who was lost without you. When you left, you took all of me with you. Only leaving my empty body, now a hollow suit.