Natalia Vela

I want you to know I would do things differently now. I wouldn’t be so cynical, I wouldn’t close myself off the way I did, I wouldn’t have doubted your intentions, I wouldn’t have refused to believe that maybe I deserved more than all I had ever known.

I’m convinced it gives you some sort of satisfaction to see how much you can manipulate strong and beautiful women like me.

You’ve always been there. Treading the shallow waters of my consciousness. Never straying too far from land.

They lay a finger on you and you shudder. They call you “babe” and it used to make you feel warm, but now all you can think about is how you don’t want to hear that come out their mouth anymore.

I’m thinking about your bottom lip, about how tender it felt between my teeth. I’m thinking about your mouth, about how it stopped my world, how it got me high, how I never wanted to come down.

It hurt. Doing this hurt. Caring about him hurt. Being his friend hurt. Loving him hurt. Letting him go for a final time, letting him go in all seriousness hurt. And I still am not sorry, I still wouldn’t take any of it back.

It’s thoughts of your hands, my lips, your mouth, my skin. And there’s an aching for something not here. A longing for something hollowed out from my body. I pretend I never loved you, I’m afraid I always will.

If you’re going to love someone who has been cheated on, do it wholeheartedly, do so with purity. Unpack your baggage in front of them. Let them in. Doing so makes this person feel not only like you trust them, but like they can feel comfortable trusting you and doing the same.

I think I’d much prefer it this way until I hold hands with someone who makes me feel like the stars tangled themselves between our fingers.

I wouldn’t mind it, being in a room alone with you, getting to know you, opening myself up. I just find myself intrigued by you. I’ve never been more curious. I have a feeling we speak the same language.

I’m done hanging on to your words, done listening to the songs you send me through the periods we go without speaking, done ever believing you actually ever felt something for me.

I waited, I wished, to see you turn back and say I choose you, be with me, but you didn’t. It’s the most physical kind of wanting and of aching I’ve ever known.

An introvert will always understand the importance of space and alone time because they are so self-sufficient. The introvert needs time alone to unwind, to recharge, to clear their minds and when you need the same they will understand and respect your wishes and never take offense.

Love isn’t a place that hurts. Love is supposed to be a home.

I’ve handed out pieces of myself like party favors to those who did not deserve a taste. I have loved before, and I have loved hard, and all I ever got were scars. So please be patient with me if I flinch when you touch me with more than hands, like ice coming into contact with them.

But you left me afraid, afraid of opening myself up to anyone else, afraid of letting anyone touch me with more than just hands.

I suppose my love for you started to seep out from my pores, slowly, each time you broke me a little more, each time you hurt me a little more, each time I got closer and closer to numbness, because our love always felt more like pain than love, more tragic than beautiful.

We fall back into old habits – bad habits – with way too much ease. We’re thirsty, high and drunk on the act, we’ve got chatty mouths, hungry hands, and a fake light in our eyes. We begin to tear ourselves apart, yet again, in different ways on our search for wholeness.