This Is How You’ll Leave Me

I thought insecurities all stem from the same place: me. But on matters of the mind and heart, nothing is remotely near black and white. No, it’s way more messy and colourful, more grey areas than there are defined borders and I’ve oversimplified this life when I knew no step was going to make much sense at all without careful calculation and logic. Scratch that, it’s going to fuck you up either way.

But every now and then I screw up. Little things get me and yesterday in the hour before dawn cracked, I realised your previous love was a love so deep I would never be able to have you like how he had.

I’ve never met him, nor do I know the sound of his voice and how he writes witty texts. But I do know you enamour him like women and their diamonds and he’s still a part of your purpose despite you initiating the break.

I guess that’s how insecurity feels. Like in the first battle scene in Hacksaw Ridge, despite armed for the storms, I’m awfully unaware on where to attack, oblivion as to where and how I should guard myself.

I realise I’m no more special than the next person, your comforting presence no more transient than my company to you. You’ve spoken once about your premonition about how I’ll end up hating you, and I spent the rest of the day trying to not think about it but by nightfall I feel like I know exactly how you’ll leave me.

We’ll be somewhere few months down together, ambiguous state of mind with me fallen far harder and deeper than you; mind burning for you to tell me I’m the one, as I have decided that you, I. We’ve shared more than just pecks in the lips by then, maybe opened ourselves to each other and you’ll blurt out his name instead of mine when you were about to come. It’s ok, pretend you didn’t hear it. But spend your waking hours with half a mind wondering if you’re not enough.

Out of nowhere, he’ll come back into your life one day and you’ll realize you just can’t seem to put that relationship down despite my head on your chest on many nights, nuzzling into your bare chest, kissing and telling you how much I love and need you. Those nights I would hold you so tight as if I would cease to exist if I exerted less force, because I already knew in your mind, I’m no more than a placeholder and you’d close your eyes to imagine it was still him in your arms.

You’ll tell me the truth and wish us to be friends. I’ll feign absolute empathy and assure you your request for friendship from here on is guaranteed. But really I’ll be wrecked from the inside out, losing all remainders of faith and hope. Believe me, you’ll be back to the bliss you once had, making my existence in your life meaningless and I will start hating that I couldn’t make you feel whole. We would never text or even meet again.

I have failed again.

From time to time, I believe I’ll have idiosyncrasies and moments that’ll hurl you back to when he did it. While you’re hurting over lost love with him by using me as a comforter, please don’t forget the daily torment I go through, the silent whimpers knowing full and well the closest I’ll get is just at being a replacement.

I don’t know how to make you fall for me on the first date as he did, neither do I know how make you know I’m the one like he did. I don’t know how to make you feel like you maxed out on luck, the man blessed personally by the gods, to make your heart so full you could physically feel like you’re going to explode anytime with joy and love.

I don’t know how to give you that rush of ecstasy like he did, that timely joy you must drop everything to attend to. Immediate blue ticks and replies filled with the same tender affection even if the honeymoon phase is long over. Neither do I know how to make you feel proud of me, like a trophy you can’t wait to show the world, rather than a secret you keep under careful wraps.

I just don’t know how to, I just couldn’t.

But mind you my love for you is no less than his.