Funny how all the elements are the same, all the stationary objects are familiar, known, but then the variables are what throw me, the people change and all of a sudden I'm a wreck, unable to relax, pulled back half my life ago to high school inadequacies, certain that they were all talking about me every time there was a "her" spoken.
And to him, what must I be now? At first I was exciting and new and now I am something to be avoided, something to worry about, something to ignore. Ignored, left to wither in his shadow, hearing his laughter for someone else, I had to leave, I was itching to go, I couldn't get comfortable.
They all know what happened between us or what couldn't happen and I wonder if they think I'm languishing in that, pining for him, just because I am there. Never mind that it's my bar, it's my place, it's where I came plenty before he ever arrived. And yet, it's the kind of place where I am never seen for who I really am and that's the worst kind of misunderstanding. I can't defend myself enough, I can't talk myself out of the quicksand, I can't say the best, coolest, funniest thing all the time.
When it gets like this, where I'm frustrated with the lot of them, those variables, those people, I promise myself I will never go back in there, that it's not for me, that I can't take another night of their eyes crawling over me, evaluating me, checking me for cracks and pulling out the sledgehammer in preparation for my demise.
And him, rather than be the good man I'd thought he was, he allowed them their scrutiny, even hid from the front lines to avoid being pelted with the shards of my self-esteem shattering and spraying across them, and I was sad that even he could not muster up the affection for me that he claimed to have, to interact with me despite the imminent and likely goading he would suffer.
Before I was sad that he would leave eventually, now I long for the days when he will be gone for good.
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