My Love Was Not Enough To Save You

I tried with every two-hundred-and-six bones in my body to save you. To understand your brokenness. To grasp it. To restore your heavy and substantial heart. To reason with your flourished internal anger. To love you, always. In fact, I had more than made an effort. I fought the world for you. Yes, the cruel and cold fucking world. I had my weapons loaded and I was always properly in gear and ready for battle.

I wanted to make you happy. I wanted to be an assistance to easing your pain, to lessening it and if that meant going to war with the universe, I did just that for you, every damn time. However, after walking out of the last battle losing, being defeated by the enemy, walking away with empty guns and dull swords, sweat and blood covering my now weak body, I had realized just then and there, I would never be enough for you and most importantly, I could never of saved you.

I was young, inexperienced and unsophisticated to the sick process of love, but I was well aware and certain of one thing, you were slowly dying inside. I fell in love with a human being that was internally hurting and emotionally shutting down, not just shutting down on me, but shutting down on yourself, your friends, your family, and your hated job. You were convinced that alcohol helped you sedate the reality of your tender and aching emotions, maybe it did, maybe it didn’t, but that is not the thing at play here.

You were hurting beyond my power to save you. As someone who loved you, unconditionally, I believed it was my duty to fight for you, in blood, sweat and tears. As our relationship is now over, I always find myself thinking of all of the ways our relationship had failed, because if I deserve anything, I deserve closure and truthfully, a piece of mind.

You were always so consumed in your own misery and lost in your Grey Goose Vodka and orange juice that you will never be able to recall the times where I would speak gentle words in your ear as you were sleeping. Reminding and reiterating to you that I take part ownership of your battles because they were yours. And whatever belongs to you and whatever you possess, I possess as well. You probably cannot remember the quiet moments at dinner when I would spontaneously remind you how much I truly loved you.

Nor the times where I would attempt to make passionate love to you and as I would be on top of you, your eyes were vacant, your skin smelt like vodka and you were far beyond gone, somewhere lost in your agony. It scared me. When I became frightened in the middle of trying to sexually connect with you, I would roll over on my side and quietly cry. Yes, I know, you never noticed because by that time you were already lost in your drunken sleep.

There was something about you that led me to accept that I had fallen so profoundly in love with you. It was not in those moments when I would hear the ice cubes hit the glass as you would pour yourself your fourth round of a mixed drink. It was not in those moments where I would be on the ground, struggling lifelessly to bring my beaten self up off of the hardwood floor to find the strength in my shaking voice to apologize once more for triggering your anger.

In fact, I had fallen so profoundly in love with you because despite the demons that you were always at constant battle with, I had failed to see in the early stages of our relationship that they were in fact in the process of defining you, taking over your whole being, and on their way of consuming every good bone in your body.

It absolutely saddens and devastates me that you never had the strength to beat your struggles. You never had the fortitude to walk into battle with loaded weapons and sharp swords, ready to fight, for you, for us. Instead, I was the one who had been in combat in the term of our relationship for you and regrettably I had lost each and every fight to save you. I am so very sorry.

I am also so very fortuitous to of learned many valuable lessons in the long and miserable term of our relationship. Lessons that I proudly carry in the palms of my hands and I carry with utter pride. First and foremost, I want to sincerely thank you for educating me in all of the wrong ways the mere fact that you can never save someone else from this cruel and cold fucking world.

It is absolutely impossible. You had also taught me in the course of our relationship that our struggles can in fact define who we are as individuals, only if we only let them. Unfortunately, you had let your demons take over who you once were; a selfless, caring, sensitive, charismatic, and internally beautiful person.

However, I want remind you that we are all fighting some kind of battle but it does us more harm than good to mentally, emotionally and physically abuse the one person who would go into battle for us. These words will be the last written words you will ever read from me, it was never my job to save you from misery. Happiness is a personal decision, one that cannot be made by another human being.

I spent our entire relationship trying to selfishly love you and save you, but I now understand that love is a reciprocated act of emotion and when it is not reciprocated, there is no love. Also, please find love in yourself before you commit those three letter words to another soul. We cannot possibly love someone else entirely, if we are far from loving ourselves.

Best,

Avalon Hendricks