An Open Letter to the Guy that Broke Me

Dear "man" from my past,

You may believe that this letter is going to be an explanation of how you broke my heart or how I will never be able to love again thanks to you. I'm sorry to say but you are sadly mistaken. This letter won't be about any of that. This letter will an explanation of how you were the one to succeed at taking all of me. Yes, you broke my heart. Yes, you were the first guy I truly loved, I thought you might have been the person that I've been searching for. Yes we were friends but you did not always exhibit behavior that fit that label. You confused me and left me constantly confused on what we "were." Thankfully that feeling has been broken.

Before I explain how your successful attempt at taking all of me has affected me, I want to thank you. I want to thank you for all the good times we had together. Thank you for the dinner dates and for the midnight runs to Mcdonalds. Thank you for the dates to Arcades. Thank you for the hours spent on Skype listening to you play guitar. Thank you for helping me find my confidence. Thank you for introducing me to things that I had never tried before. Thank you for being there for me on the days that I just wanted to end it all. Thank you for supporting me in my endeavours. Thank you for the laughs and for the late night drives into the middle of nowhere. Most importantly, thank you for showing me that a wolf can wear sheep's clothing.

I see now that I was never going to be more than just another hookup. I loved you and that love was never reciprocated. You became my best friend and I was just your conditional friend. You acted like I was your world one day and nothing more than a good time the next. You left me with the constant insecurity of our "status" so you maintained power over me. You would make me feel like we were solid just to turn around and make me wonder if we would make it. And in the end, we didn't. In the end I was as easy to walk away from as a one-night-stand.

That will no longer be an issue. Not only with you, but with anybody. I will no longer wonder over the status of a relationship because I no longer want one. I will no longer worry that my feelings aren't reciprocated. I never deserved to feel worthy of love one day and unworthy of love the next, and now I have no more love to give away freely. I realize now that I was pursuing you with the thought of a lifelong relationship when you were only in it for the short term.

I don't hate you. But what I am is angry with you. I am angry that you were so undeserving of my love; so undeserving of being forever a part of me. I am angry because as I began to get over you, I became the person that had always hurt me. I became the person that I couldn't help but gravitate towards. I became the person that had left me reeling wondering if I was deserving of happiness. I became the person I hated. I became you. When I allowed you to have my heart I took that opportunity away from the person that deserves it. That; that is the reason I am angry with you.

I have become the person that refuses to sleep next to somebody when I hook up with them because I'd rather save the feelings. I have become the person that hooks up with somebody and feels nothing afterwards. I have become the person that has to consider if someone will get too attached before I talk to them. I have become the person that can just as easily walk away from someone that I've grown to know everything about as I could somebody that I had bumped into on the street corner.

When I look in the mirror now... I see you. I see somebody heartless. I see somebody who doesn't care. I see somebody who is ashamed of who they are. I see somebody who hates themselves. I see someone insecure. I see someone who is afraid to go back to church on Sunday because I'm no longer the person I used to be. I see someone who is fighting to find that part of myself that you stole. I see above all, just a shell of the person I had grown to be.

I'm having to take steps to try to remember who I was. I'm having to go through each day without my best friend. I'm having to try to become the person that I used to be without you, but I can't because although when you left you took a huge part of me, you replaced it with a huge part of you.

But above all else, above all the anger and resentment. I hate you because I still love you.