Don't

One

 Michael tells me that he has had one foot out the door for the past year, and I am the one helping him tie his shoes so he can be on his way. He also makes it very clear that the reason why only one foot is out the door is because I'm not only the one helping him tie his shoes, I am the one who undresses us both during the late hours of the night, giving him one reason to stay when he says he has hundreds of reasons to go. I am a doormat to him, and as he steps outside he walks on me one last time.  He tells me to get the fuck over it with a cigarette pressed between his teeth and the red pack clenched in his fist.  He tells me that he likes his scotch neat and that I have always been on the rocks, off the rails and a train wreck waiting to happen. His words were destroying me, I tried to block them out but, the silence was a killer too.

Loving him isn't easy. To be honest, it is far from easy. It is exhausting. Loving him is nothing like those disney movies instead of being happy, each night was spent feeling the exact opposite. I hope and wish for him to love me back, but each night the reality of it all seems farther and farther away. But I love him, and I think I always will.

He reminded me of vulnerability and insanity. That humans had all sorts of qualities, good and bad. Some worse than others. He reminded me of the color red, the color you see when you're so angry you  can't focus. The color you see when you're so mad that your fist goes through the wall. He reminded me of the worst night we ever had after a bottle of Jack Daniels and a screaming match so loud the neighbors called the cops. But, he also reminded me of light pink. The color you see in his cheeks when you compliment him. The color you see appearing on his neck after you've been kissing all over it. He reminded me of the pink sunrise when I woke up in his arms, naked as he snored lightly in my ear after a long night of sex and alcohol.

We are a disaster and everyone could see it, including us.  We would fight and he would tell me how his friends would tell him to break up with me because he is no longer someone they recognize. I would go to dinner with my closest friends and they would tell me to " just be done" because our relationship wasn't one I would recommend to them, or even share stories of aloud. 

We could see it but, what held us together was the sheets that we found ourselves tangled in, and nothing else mattered; not the fights, not the advice from our friends and not the hate that was mutual between us. We talked about our relationship often, describing it with words such as a tornado, a hurricane, a death wish.  That is how I convinced myself that love was supposed to be this way because, at the end of the night I wouldn't want to be with anyone else. I didn't want to break up with him, but I knew we couldn't stay together anymore but, I also knew.. Neither of us were strong enough to walk away for good because this is all we've ever known.