I Think It’s Safe To Say You’ve Ruined Me

By

I’ve seen you around.

When it was new, the sight of you would throw me off. Send me into a panic attack, instantly send me out of character. I was yelling, cussing, screaming to get you out of my place of employment. I worked a 4 hour shift the day you got married two weeks after we broke up. The people inside those walls dried my tears, fed me words of encouragement, and took care of me when I didn’t want to be alone. That’s what pissed me off most, you came to my place of employment and asked my friends to wait on you while they knew what you did to me.

What a coward.

I saw you a few months later, at a local bar we used to both go to. The bartender knew us both, he liked me better of course. I was about to leave, just simply because the sight of you still make me sick to my stomach. But then I really saw you. I saw how fucked up you were. I saw how you could barely make a sentence. I saw how you didn’t have a wedding ring on and were all by yourself, while I sat with your former friends. I saw the sad and lonely person I fell in love with 5 years ago. I didn’t leave or look your way. You left. I bummed a cigarette and walked outside and smoked a Camel Light while I watched you walk 6 blocks in the opposite direction until I couldn’t see an outline of you anymore. Then I balled my eyes out.

I fixed my makeup and went back into the bar.

I wasn’t perfect. I asked a lot out of you, and I pretended for way too long that you were not addicted to pain pills when you were. I also pretended for way too long that I was not taking extra benzos to distract myself that your addiction was out of hand. I have never loved anyone the way I loved you. I was so full of hope. It didn’t matter what happened in the world, all would be well if I got to lie next to you at the end of the night. That, in fact, is how I dealt with most things. Everything was fine once I would be in your arms, and I was in your arms every night for 6 years.

Then it stopped…

I will give you one thing, although a compulsive liar and a manipulator, I do not think you were a cheater. Actually, I don’t think you had the confidence to cheat or it would have happened much sooner. We were over years before we actually ended it. I did not know that though. You had it planned out. You were slowly distancing yourself from me and my life and I did nothing but grasp harder and harder to keep you to stay.

The more you wanted out, the more I loved you.

And I don’t wish that on anyone. The hardest thing to do is mourn the loss of someone who is still alive. You are alive in the sense of breathing and being. You are alive in the sense of waking up every day breathing. You are no longer alive to me or the people who once loved you though. I will never understand what I did to deserve to fall in love with such a manipulative addict who hurt me more than he will ever understand. I like to think I am fairly intelligent. I was not one to be fooled easily or lack the confidence to be single. I just truly thought you were the love of my life and we were going to get through whatever came our way. Naive? Maybe, but there are older people than me who believe in much larger fairy tales.

It is easy for me to dismiss you now, much easier than before. I can hear your name without flinching. I do not feel the need to talk shit on what schemes you played on me and your friends. I do not feel the need to run your name through the dirt because you have done a fine job of doing that yourself. You do need to know though, you missed out on a once in a lifetime love. A love with no end. The worst part about that though is that I think you’ve taken my best, which also means some future man has missed out on his chance of the love of a lifetime.

And he should never ever forgive you.