I loved you for so long that I sucked down insults until they swallowed me up. It had been a way to strengthen one another, as we climbed with bare feet over the slate mountainside. You were a voice of honesty, when I only wanted to lie to myself. I was… something akin to your friend. It worked well. We built each other up when we were down. We shared. We laughed. We loved, in a way. Our way. 

Even though that thing happened.

We were unique. Speaking of life lessons we had studied alongside one another. Learning hand in hand, and finding some new strengths the world had bade us believe we never had. We championed, sometimes. We challenged. We changed. 

Even after that other thing happened.

We began to find success, in relationships, oh not that one. Still, we were steadfast. We knew we could make it when no others could. Everyone knew your name, and mine and spoke our names in tandem. A pair we were, year after year. 

I’m just gonna ignore the other other thing that happened. 

But, my heart started to feel the pang of the past. It hurt when you dismissed me. I started to see the mimetic desire drive a wedge into some part of me. I wondered why, but my unfaltering openness just couldn’t speak to it. Then I wondered, had I seen you clap for my wins? Had you smiled as I succeeded? Had you been dreaming of my demise?

I had always been lesser in some ways. Where I had come from stayed with me for you. My struggle not quite the same as yours, sadder maybe. My own design. Had I lessened me for you? In ways, yes. Ways I could never say because much had become unspoken. 

Those things had been adding up. The rejections. The admonishing warnings. The failures to follow through. Small pains, incrementally climbing atop one another until they were mountainous on my shoulders. 

Until I could no longer serve the longing of your insatiable insecurity by sacrificing my face, and what could serve my ability to find wholeness. I wanted all of me in every space. I didn’t want to shrink or hold the door for you. I didn’t want to allow you to always lead. Decisions to be made by anyone but me. 

So much time gone now, memories that only we could reminisce about together – simply lost. It hurts. 

But now healing is mine to make happen and not beg for it from this broken down space of want that is held down by fear. 

I don’t want to lie to myself that closure will seal this hurt when it’s my ego hoping to touch validation and confirm we both knew what really happened.

Time happened.

We happened.

Both good and bad.

It was everything I needed, until it wasn’t. And I couldn’t seem to find the words to make us work.

Just like I know you couldn’t either.