I try with fervent determination not to think about him. [the drunken ambusher] I actually have many moments when the sun shines, the world is beautiful and it has nothing to with him being there at all. Amazingly, there are times when I forget about him.
When I think of him it is a constant reminder of all that I am not. All that I lack. All that I clearly don't have that would inspire him to want to be with me. I wish it wasn't this way. I hate that it's that way. I love who I am and what I do and who I'm constantly becoming.
I wish there was something, some shred of joy, some sliver of pleasure that I can derive out of thoughts of him. I wish that my being a part of his life might actually mean something to him, but I am just a mirror he stares into, a mirror that talks back, a mirror that soothes, a mirror that encourages, but all he sees is himself. He looks in my direction out of mild curiosity and all he sees is his own flaws.
Funny thing is, it's always been this way between us. I just never really could put my finger on it before, I could never really say what it was about him that was unsatisfying, that felt like a metallic swallow of fear sitting at the back of my throat. It wasn't until I tried to recall all that we've shared, I collected the moments we've had in the periphery of each other's lives that I finally saw the pattern.
He was always panicked and broken, he was always self centered and in need of assurances, he has always been a mess.
And I was always perfectly willing to care for him, to find the time to adore him despite his well worn flaws or supposed flaws, and he was so distracted by his own mess that he couldn't even see me. And more than two full years later, despite the distance he's had from her, regardless of my own evolution, he is still a mess of a man who stands in his own filth and cannot see that he is perfectly capable of being happy, he just has to walk away from this condition, this hinderance, this horror that he's become addicted to.
What angers--and bothers--and also frustrates me is that I had just begun to let go of the fantasy that one day we might find a way into each other. The final blow was that night he was on a date with a much younger girl, who happened to be blonde and tiny. It finally sunk in that no matter how fucked up he was, I wasn't the one who'd be able to breathe life into him again. And then when he realized I was done caring for him, all he had to do was tug at a loose end of my convictions, to test my indifference to his presence, to try me just for the fun of watching to see if I'd fall.
and fall I did.
Just when I was beginning to get myself back up, after that big fall (not just the small ones along the way), after that blow of not being enough, of not inspiring life in him, of not being worthy enough to seduce him out of his mess, finally realizing that it might not have anything to do with me at all, because really the only thing he sees is himself; he wandered into my scope and devastated my attempts at pretending it didn't matter.
Damn him! As an idea, as a concept, as an abstract that was intangible, I could do it, I could wipe him away, I could forget that I even wasted an ounce too much of my energies on him and his mess. I could almost pretend I hadn't fallen so hard for hardly anything.
And yet--
the truth is, I've been staring at each face that wanders past, and the shock of his face suddenly appearing where it's been absent for months now, I felt my eyes widen, my heart race, my body shuddered from the electricity we share. I smiled widely and happily without thinking about it (a rarity in my world) and my friends turned to see who had elicited such a smile. Their responses were negative, surprised (they assumed incorrectly that things had stayed quiet and sullen between us) and disgusted. They've long since abandoned him as a person worth knowing. If only I could join them as easily.
His foot faltered at the stair, and his eyes registered surprise as well, then flickered with necessity, he had to come in and my being there wouldn't stop him. He put on a wide smile and arrived, nervously approached us, took in the awkward masks of my friends who once loved him and now out of some misguided loyalty to me feel they must hide their affection. I pulled him away from that pain, which he was already reacting to, already cognizant of, already processing into little knife wounds along his arm, the pain, the glorious pain, it was as if the torture he constantly craves was there and sitting on his chest carving symbols into his flesh, but he was so shocked by it he could barely function.
How amazing that someone who pretends to hate themselves and their life, the mess of their own life cannot stand face to face with pure, though slightly misguided, hate.
And even then, even though I should have joined them, I could have rightfully done so for the last couple years of the bullshit he's tossed in my direction with no regard for me and my adoration and my interest, I could have easily turned a cold stare in his direction and ignored him, but I couldn't, I pulled him away from his pain and tried to soothe him, and I suspect no matter what the outcome, I always will.
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