Open Letter To An Ex

I could never dislike you, no matter what transpires. We could one up each other forever in this battle of petty, but I will always remember you for the times you made me smile. The laughs that felt involuntary and untamed. I sometimes wonder why the death of relationships mark the end of relations. Where did these unwritten rules of us never speaking again come from? When did that become “healthy?”

Relationships seem like a dead end. You start down the road as friends, then you become lovers. If the loving doesn’t work out, some how the road you came down is now blocked off. You can not turn back and be friends again. The only option is individual roads in opposite directions from the end. Two separate roads where you literally don’t exist and neither do I.

I sit here and question unconditional. Throughout our love phase, we speak of this unicorn consistently. As if we’ve seen it. As if we truly understand the complexity of what it is to exist beyond all conditions. We speak of something as if we see it. Summoning its’ power to only see we are not able to harness it. Unconditional love can only be proven through the conditions it overcomes. The biggest lie is that lovers share an unconditional love. What happens in the condition of one cheating? What happens in the condition when one leaves?

These conditions are considered great reasons for a love to die, but in my eyes, why does change have to signify loves demise.

You have the right to cut your hair, and the love will remain.

You have a right to change jobs, and the love will remain.

But if you do that one thing, that one thing I don’t want, my love is gone forever.

So are the smiles. So are those untamed laughs.

I have never claimed to be the perfect partner. Actually I claim to be hard to handle before anything else. Some how, every time, I still surrender to loves’ possibility. Some how, when I get a glimpse at love, I commit with everything I have. Maybe that is a flaw, maybe it is a strength. Thus far, it has only proven to be hard for me to overcome. I still mourn my first break ups like the last. Not necessarily for the reason of them carrying the same weight as much as the ends delivering the same sting.

It is most likely me at this point if all of my relationships have found their end, but why can’t I carry a conversation with any of those girls that were once my friends?

At one point, you were the center of my universe. At one point, you were everything I needed in my day, and more. After we fall out, you become a stranger again. After we fall out, some how, I’m supposed to act like you still don’t live in my heart, beating on the walls faster every time I think of you.

Sometimes I put on a front for my friends.

Sometimes people ask me about you and I put on a mask of “fuck her” just to seem like I am not still wondering what you dreamed about yesterday.

Maybe I don’t understand relationships, or love for that matter. Every time I end one, I feel enough pain to stay off the drug for the foreseeable future. That is until I get my next hit. That next perfect person that says they love me for who I am. That next perfect person who even when it’s hard, still seems to have a smile waiting for me at the end of a challenge.

They say you can’t love another until you love yourself.

Maybe I’m still learning to be my own perfect person.

I’m still trying to love me for who I am. Despite success, and failures.

Maybe that is why we didn’t work.

How could I love you, day in and day out, the way that you deserve, without ever having felt that for me.

Some days I wake up and look in the mirror to only see unsatisfied eyes staring back, longing for more.

I might need to become whatever it is I’m looking to be, to be able to give someone the fullest part of me.

Until then, proceed towards me with caution. As I will do you. I have a tendency to fall, and I see we all do.