A Warning About The Kind Of Guy You Shouldn’t Give Your Heart To
You’ll meet a boy who senses your want, your cravings, and he will prey on it. You will mistake his warning shot for a warm embrace.
He will throw you in the fire and let the good parts of you burn off, leaving behind nothing but something easily moldable, breakable.
Later, when looking back on it, you’ll realize that it was a little funny that he could remember the freckle on your nipple, but he couldn’t remember your favorite color. You will ask him what color makes him feel invincible and he will say “we don’t really have that kind of relationship, do we?” He will eat you up, and then he will leave. You knew it would happen, but you still shatter all over the kitchen floor anyways.
For you, life means needing approval from everybody who isn’t you. In university, this is deadly. You will search for dirty men on the city bus, seek love from the women who are meant to be your friends, and make friends with strangers on the internet who care more about your screen name than your real one. You will tell yourself that it’s fine, that you’re one of the cool kids, you can totally do this casual sex thing. All the college kids do it. You won’t let yourself think about the fact you spend night after night alone with a bottle of whiskey and a scalpel, wondering why they never call back and why they can never look you in the eye.
You will spend your nights starving and your days running and lunging and purging. The weight melts off, but your anxiety and self-hate will still cling to the corners of yourself that you’re too scared to visit. The boy is still your best friend. He entertains you at night with stories of his new girlfriend and her hands; he tells you he loves the way she moves, more smoothly than you, with much more intent. Don’t even think about trying to leave. He can smell the hate on you, can feel the hate and the need, and he revels in it. He will know you have nothing else.
In the end, you won’t leave. He leaves, again, travels thousands of miles away, and you have no choice but to pick up the pieces of yourself that you watched fold and tear.
You will hate yourself, briefly, for letting him do this to you twice. You try to provide him with some kind of reasoning; you know it’s partially your fault, but mostly you just cry on your therapists shoulder for 140$/hr. You meet another boy. He tells you that he loves your hair and the way your eyes glint and the way you paint your nails, but he leaves quicker than the first. You will think he’s the one. He will be scared off by the first boy, who will be whispering warnings into the ear of everybody you know. You will start from square one.
But then, things will change. You will get fed up. Later, you decide that you really didn’t give the poor boy a break; you were broken long before he showed up. You will decide you’d rather be a person rather than an object,, and after months and months and months, the disastrous cycle of ripping yourself apart and trying to tape yourself back to together will end. Seasons melt and blend together until you can barely remember the late nights you’d spend on your knees in the shower. You will finally learn how to be alone.
And then, you will meet a boy who feels brand new, even though he’s just as broken as you are. His smile reminds you of the sun, and the first thing he tells you is his favorite color: purple.