I’m the girl everyone leaves. The one they promise the world to before they disappear. The one they say they love, they swear, their words like honey laced with poison. I’m the girl who always ends up alone.
I’m the girl who’s always a little afraid to jump in. Because what if they hurt me too? What if everyone who coaxes me to tear down my walls are the reasons I have to build it up again? All I do is reassemble myself only to let myself be undone. I’m so, so tired of letting people in only so they can walk out.
And yet they try to tell me that they aren’t the same, that they aren’t like the others. That they are the ones who will stay by my side and mend my broken heart. I am never quick to believe them.
“Maybe it’s my fault,” I tell them.
“It isn’t,” they promise with half-held tongues as they swallow me into their warmth.
But I always see it coming before it happens; I am a master of picking up the patterns. And then they are gone and I am left cold and there is no one to blame but myself. I am weary from holding the baggage they leave every time they walk out the door. I still haven’t learned how to survive without carrying my heartbreak on my sleeve.
And still, I’m the girl who loves too much. Who bleeds from her heart and soul. Who falls apart and then pulls herself together again. Who never stops loving even when all she’s known is hurt. Who hopes, deep down, that there are people who can love you without destroying you. Who believes it to her core.
So maybe it is my fault. Maybe I was right all along. Because I am the girl everyone leaves, but I never stop believing in more.