Midnight Thoughts

I'm Not Convinced That I Miss You Anymore

When I was 16 I met you and it gave me life.
I met you and I discovered the true meaning of infatuation, of obsession, of endless pining.

At 17, for the first time I felt my childlike infatuation with you transform into intense love. I felt what it was to be truly know and to be seen, entirely transparent, as clear as a sheet of glass.
I learned that in allowing myself to be emotionally naked, exposed to you, you revealed yourself to me in turn.

What an odd thing to lay yourself bare for someone, to be fully exposed, but to cover your heart and to call it friendship.

Turning 18 thrust me into adulthood faster than I ever could have anticipated or desired. In the sheer depths of my agony you became intertwined with my very being, seeping into the cracks of my shattered soul.

After years of denying the inescapable truth I finally uttered the very words that had been hiding behind my terror, on the tip of my tongue, since the day I met you. "I love you."

It took pain, unadulterated yearning, and the sweet embrace of indigestible liquor to coerce it out of me, but I finally laid my cards on the table. "I love you."

By my 19th birthday, I learned what it was to love without reciprocation, to beg in silence for not only your affection but for the affirmation that your passion for me was as intense as mine was for you. As the year passed so did my innocence.

With immeasurable desperation I ran through legions of men, hoping for the slightest trace of you. I sat above them all, taking their "I love you"s as a sign that despite your inability to return my devotion I still had value.

After each intense affair I languished in the memory of you. My "I love you" spoiled into a powerful hatred which consumed every hour of my existence.
After all, man knows no fury like a woman scorned.

When the second decade of my life began, I finally submitted myself to being vulnerable. I realized that I could no longer survive under the sheer weight of my own armor. I had placed another layer of protection onto my soul each time that I suffered, until I had created a barrier so thick that no one could even stand within 10 feet of me. I was untouchable, but I longed for connection.

After 20 years of loneliness, I finally decided to save myself by throwing  my fortifications away and baring my terrified, sensitive soul to the world. In my vulnerability I found my entire being exposed to you once again.

The universe was, as it was created to be: with you and I as thick as thieves, begging for each-other with every fiber of our beings yet giving our time and our bodies to the affections of unsuspecting strangers. How were they to know that as our words and actions swore allegiance to them, our hearts and souls called out only for each-others?

I hope that some day when I am laid to rest, God will find a way to forgive me for the bystanders who I embraced and destroyed in my quest to hold onto you.

I hope God forgives you for possessing me while you built a home with another woman, while you share Her bed and intertwine your identities.

By the time I breached 21 years-old I mastered the art of ignorance. Even from 19 hours away, I further developed my compulsive obsession with you. There was no relief from my neurotic belief that you and I were created to live and die together.

You seeped into my bones and spoke into my soul. You were never physically present yet you made your accessibility known every day of my life. Every minute was greeted by a text from you, My Dearest, in which you further entangled me into your web of guilt and ardent love.

I knew that our passionate affair was wrong, but as there could be no physicality between us from 19 hours away I justified our devious emotional affair by convincing myself that you had no intentions of marrying Her and therefore we had free reign to act however we chose.

Who's to know what is wrong and what is right? How could it be wrong for me to love you when it takes me no effort? For six long years loving you was like breathing - inevitable. How was I meant to forget you if you hadn't gotten onto your knees and begged me to?

Nothing short of you swearing an oath of love to another woman could have had any power to keep me from you, had you asked.

You never asked though. You never showed up at my house begging for my love and my forgiveness.
It didn't matter how many times I begged God to make you, you never showed up on my doorstep.

All we had was confessions of love, typed into a midnight phone screen. There was no action between us, just words and memories of stolen glances and cryptic touches.

Without action, love can never exist as more than a fantasy, no matter how much you say it, or how much you believe that you really truly mean it.
You were my life's most intense, irrational, incredible love and you were my deepest fantasy.

At 22 years old, I'm not convinced that I love you anymore.  I'm indisputably grown now. My life is everything I ever wanted and you're still not here. I'm truly, incredibly, shockingly happy even though you're even further from me than you have been since the day we met.

My attachment to my yearning for you was so intense that for years I haven't been able to remember whether I truly loved you or the phantom of a memory of you which existed only in my fantasies.

After three years without looking you in the eyes, I guess I'll never know who it was that my heart stuck to like feathers to tar; you, or my own imagination.

It breaks my heart not to love you anymore, but when I yearn I no longer yearn for you. Love stories, songs, and sweet talk of romance no longer sink into my heart like they used to. I no longer have a muse and I look forward to the day when I meet someone who inspires me to write poetry once more, because I'm not convinced that I miss you anymore.