This Is The Girl I Was Before You, And I’d Do Anything To Get Her Back

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My heart races when I press send on that text. When I pick up the phone to call and there’s no answer. This deep, rooted fear and anxiety makes my stomach hurt, it makes my heart heavy, it makes me angry over and over again.

You left with no warning, no goodbye, no explanation and now I am afraid that every person who walks into my life is going to walk out of it without so much as a glance back in my direction.

It’s been years since I last saw you, I don’t even know if I remember what you look like. I don’t remember our last conversation, or even what your voice sounds like. All I can remember is the way my entire body hurt from shame. I can remember the anger I had not at you, but at myself for ever letting you in, for trusting you. I changed.

Here’s the thing, I don’t want to remember you. I don’t care about you or how you’re doing or even why you did what you did. I thought I needed closure but I don’t. I found that for myself.

All I want. All I want. All I need is to remember who I was before you. She was someone who was so, damn fearless.

I desperately want to love like she did. She dove in head first, unafraid of letting people into her world. Her world had an open door policy and she loved with every fiber in her body. She was strong, and graceful, and free.

But that girl hasn’t come back. I sit here, frightful to send a simple text thinking “is this going to be the one he never answers?” “Is this going to be phone call that he never calls back?” “Is this the last time I am going to see him? That he’s decided to walk away and leave me behind without even a word?” All of these thoughts come in like a hurricane and I can’t escape them – they are just too powerful.

I imagine it’s something like getting burned for the first time as a kid. You don’t think you’re going to get hurt from this beautiful, flickering flame. How can something so extraordinary cause any pain? But then you touch it…. And not just lightly touch, no you go in with no fear and you end up burning your entire hand.

You burn and blister and scab and peel… but you heal. And you now know you don’t touch the fire, as beautiful as it may be.

Your flame burned me so bad that I can’t approach love the same way anymore. I am timid, afraid, reserved. Who I used to be, she would still be dancing with the flame.

Who I was before you, she was everything to me. I would do anything to get her back.