This Is What It’s Like To Give Up On Someone You Love

You keep burning me out…every time you choose not talk about it, every time you pretend that everything is okay. I still want you by my side not because I’m strong enough to leave everything behind but because I’m too weak to let go of something that never really existed in the first place. I don’t know how could you possibly stand so still without a mere thought of me, as I curl up in my bed every night, discombobulated between the reality and the illusion of you.

I was never really good at expressing myself, never really opened up myself to anyone. That’s because I never wanted to show who I am, aside from the fact that people won’t understand, it might be because I know deep inside that no one really cares. But then you came… here goes the cliche. You’re the one who understood, quirks and all. You made me feel that you gave a damn about every eccentric thoughts and ideas I share, for the first time, I was there and was all bare.

You are my Peter Pan, “a mischievous young boy who can fly and wouldn’t grow up”, the perfect description. You are not fond of playing by the rules you always want to escape, for you to experience is to live and you’ll do anything to whatever extent it takes. You soar high in the sky, living your dreams as I watch your eyes light up every time you tell stories about your great adventures. And at the end of the day I didn’t realize you just wanted to play and have fun.

You never wanted to commit to anything because you are sure that Captain Hook will keep on following you.

I never expected anything from you. All I was aware of is after we met, I know that I want to keep seeing you. I thought that you get me. I thought that you’ll see right through me. I told you I wasn’t the mushy clingy type of person but I never told you that I was a romantic or maybe I did, it’s just that we have different definitions. Just like how Catherine Breillat would define romanticism.. “I am eternally, devastatingly romantic, and I thought people would see it because ‘romantic’ doesn’t mean ‘sugary.’ It’s dark and tormented — the furor of passion, the despair of an idealism that you can’t attain.” Something that you can never attain.

They must think I’m a fool for still defending you but I am not defending anything or anyone, I am fighting, fighting for myself. Although, unrequited, I know that it is all real because for an idealist like me, someone whose all life is a constant crave for the surreal, the ideal, something exceptional that will just sweep me off my feet— and I know that it wasn’t just you. It was us.

“We” is a faux perception of my thoughts. Agonizing thoughts that kept lurking my mind ever since the day you didn’t choose me. You always had a choice but you never settled. And for all the wrong reasons I concurred ‘cause I didn’t want to make a decision as well because I know that it would be phyrric. I’ll lose all the same.

But not today, today I decided to leave it all behind, I decided to choose myself and I’m going to be honest with you it’s not going to be easy but I’ve been living my life for so long without you so I believe that I’ll be able to… to not think about you in each waking moment, to not dream about you every night, to not remember the feeling anymore. Someday I will.
For now, I want to ask you… Do you remember? Do you remember the time that I told you that I tend to forget everything? It’s ironic because this time I’m having the hardest time to forget. But for the last time I want you to remember, the first time, the cheesy time, the geeky time, the dancing time, the spontaneous unadulterated moment, the last time. This is the last time you will remember—and hopefully, so do I.

“One day, whether you
are 14,
28
or 65

you will stumble upon
someone who will start
a fire in you that cannot die

However, the saddest,
most awful truth
you will ever come to find—

is they are not always
with whom we spend our lives.”

-Beau Taplin