Maybe The Problem Is You Think You’re Always The Exception To The Rule


God & Man

You think you’re the one who can fix them, the one who can help them be the best person they could be, the one who can inspire them to become who they’re afraid of becoming. That’s why you give them one more chance, a third change maybe, a tenth chance. That’s why you ignore the red flags. That’s why you convince yourself that they’re going to be different with you and that’s why you stay. That’s why you don’t leave when you should or when everyone tells you to run away.

You think that they’re not going to play the same game with you because they know you’re good, they know you will never play them, they know that if you have their heart, you’ll always protect it and you’ll always cherish it. You think that they must be talking to you because they’re ready for something more, ready for something real, ready for something deeper but then you realize that you’re the only one swimming. You’re the only one drowning because even though they knew you were different, they’re still the same. They still like the game, they still want to know that they have the upper hand, they still want to do their own thing and get all the attention they desire. They still see you as just another fish in the sea, they don’t see you as the main catch.

You think that when you leave they’ll come back because it will eventually hit them that they lost someone special, they lost someone irreplaceable and they’re going to try their best to win you back, but they don’t come back, and even if they do, they leave shortly after, because they only want to know that you still care, they only want to know that they can still have you when they want. They don’t come back to be with you forever, they come back to be with you for a little while before they go back to being themselves. They don’t come back to fix things, they come back to destroy you even more.

But you still think that one day you will be the exception, you will be the light in someone else’s darkness, you will be the hope in someone else’s despair, you will be the healer in someone else’s heartbreak and maybe you will be one day, but until that day that comes, you have to know that you’re exceptional either way, you have to know that you love in a way bigger and bolder than most and some people will never comprehend that and you have to understand that even if the ones you loved never made you the exception, it should never stop you from being who you are but maybe you should just making exceptions for everyone your heart beats for.

Maybe when it’s right, it’s not going to feel like a game with rules and exceptions, it’s not going to feel like a competition, it’s not going to feel like something you need to earn or redeem. It will just happen, it will just flow, it will just be a winner without anyone keeping score. Thought Catalog Logo Mark

Rania Naim is a poet and author of the new book All The Words I Should Have Said, available here.

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Writing makes me feel alive. Words heal me.

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