lover.

05/23/21

Dear ayden,

I can’t save you. Looking out the window of omars car those words echoed so clearly in my mind, as if they had been placed in my head. I tried so hard with you. You were the final lesson here I think. I cannot save you, or anyone else in this world. I can only save myself. I don’t know if what we had was love. I know you are never going to be the same without me and I’m sorry. I am going to have to watch you try to kill yourself in everyway imaginable. The visual of you hitting your knead against that pavement again and again, the blood spilling over your head, the feeling of being so close to being able to fly away from it all, repeats in my head. We told each other we would never leave. That was the lesson here. I had to learn how to leave. I remember that last time we really hung out. Dancing in our underwear in the parking lot. I remember every late night I spent with you, running up to you to hug you. That time you held me and told me I felt like home. The first night we met. When I took you to caleb's house. Falling asleep next to you. Promising me you were going to change. Telling me you wanted me to have your kids someday. I never believed any of it. I remember how terrible you treated me. The lying, the violence, the inability to be sober. Never making time for me unless it benefited you. You told me when you are with me you feel grounded. When I am with you, I feel like a tornado of exploding emotions, just under the surface, an ocean of darkness, doubt, the underlying dread of my instincts clashing with my feelings. I don’t doubt that you really cared about me. I don’t doubt that you are so terrified of losing me right now. Sitting at home, every neuron in your body firing off, attacking itself. I do not know if you are going to survive this one. You carried so much guilt with you, and I always wondered why. You were so convinced you were a bad person. As I slowly figured out, you were right. You are so self aware of it, yet so unable to lift yourself out of it. You are melting, drowning in the problems you create for yourself. I cannot pull you out of that. I hope you get better, but some part of me knows this is the beginning of the end for you. This ends in overdoses, violence, inpatient, and eventaully everybody around you is going to give up on you the same way I did, and you will have no one to lift you up off the gutter of which you banged your head on, again and again, until it split open, and you will finally drown in yourself.

06/18/21

Cocaine all nighters, white lines against a garage table. The whole world spinning in beautiful circles sitting in a tube on the lake, being pulled around by a boy who isn’t mine. The molly twisting my brain into an easy type of loving. Love is never easy. Seeing his face again and the sharp pain that nothing in the world could make me feel, holding onto the rebound for dear life. Watching him get knocked down. His face in my mind. Again and again. His eyes. The pain behind them. The pain behind them because of me. Rushing at him, screaming. Watching him slink away. Watching the hatred fill his face. A hurt he couldn’t handle. The love underneath it all. Grief. Despair. So I avoid it. I throw myself at the boy that isn’t mine. I tell myself hes better for me. And we work. I work with anyone. Just like that we don’t work so well. The entire time, he is spiraling. Oxys. The rainy highway. A totaled car. Anger dripping from the eyes already filled with too much pain. And so he runs away, goes missing. Waking up to the text, filled with fear. All of a sudden, he is everywhere. I see my future. I see us dancing in a stream of pure love, yellow, and bright, and dark and cautious, and damaged, and it doesn’t matter. He gets sent to a psych hospital. I watch myself in third person, I watch him. I watch him getting out, and I watch me, and suddenly it isn’t me and him, it's us. I watch him think about me every night. I watch him miss me. Love is never easy.

I feel so old.

07/13/2021

All around me the noises of a party fade in and out, my friends drinking and shouting in the room over. In my own house. I have a full case of drinks. Months ago this wouldve seemed an unbelievable paradise. As the clonzaplin kicks in, I am in my bedroom alone, listening from a distance. You are the only thing on my mind. I love you more then life itself ayden. My baby. I have a feeling you are in some trouble with your parents right now. I never stopped loving you. I want you to know that. I dont know what else to do. You occupy my mind everyday. You are eating me alive, and I am slowly killing you. We are not meant to be apart. And so I live my life and wait for you to reappear.

08/15/2021

He called me and asked to get lunch.

He added me back on snap this morning. I texted him “omg I thought u were dead” “we should talk”

08/25/2021

I cried happy tears that day.

He sent me a snap today. Dark eyes. These cuts all over his hands. He has gotten worse. We are yet to get lunch, but it will happen.

09/07/2021

Once again, the familiar glow of powder against the bathroom sink. A rolled dollar bill. Not the powder I’ve been doing for months. Xans. There is a regression. Things are coming back. I suppose old habits and old people come back with new opportunities. And new people come in with better opportunities. Just like ayden. I saw him yesterday. And everything felt as it had been before, but everything felt so wrong at the same time. I didn’t trust it. My mind went not to thinking he wanted me around when the compliments of soft hands, beauty, and the sweet smell he would never forget, but straight to manipulation. I have no genuinity left for that boy. For a moment, with my skin pressed up against him, everything felt normal. But he wouldn’t look me in the eyes. He was trying his hardest not to be powerless again. Perhaps I should protect myself as he is trying to protect himself. But I know how he works. He cannot keep himself away. “Knowing me I’ll see you again” and I merely said maybe. “I know I will” I shouldn’t have to protect myself like this.

09/21/21

I let him go now. I know it felt like walking on sunshine at first. But I was naive, and it was idealization. I would do anything to please him, and he figured that out. I was young and stupid and he was all of my firsts bundled into one. My last spring of childhood was rolled into a blunt and we smoked it together, burning fast and furious and bright, the fumes lingering in the air long after our fingers had burned from the roach. I’ve grown up now. And I’ve outgrown you. I shouldn’t have to take care of a man. They should take care of me.

10/21/21

And you are back in the hospital just like that. My fault all over again. “Megan you are the prettiest nicest girl in the entire universe” “You are the easiest person to care about ever” “I just want you to be okay. Its really the only thing I care about” You love me more then life itself. And when I told you again and again I wanted to see you, you insisted it would destroy both of us. But that is not true. This is what destroys both of us. “You dont want to talk anymore” “I want to see you” And just like that, you overdose. Again. ANd I wake up to a text from ur dad. And I always know what that means. And I love you. And I told you I love you. And now I collapse on the floor, work out after workout, when I haven’t worked out in months, and my body is numb. And I cannot feel anything and I keep going, until I fall to the floor. And I’m sure I will wake up screaming again tonight. I’ve had nightmares even when I nap since sunday. But maybe if I drink enough I will sleep soundly wrapped around your hoodie. And pouring every drink I can find in this house into a red solo cup and downing it. You are haunting me, tearing me apart, and I recognize who I used to be before you in the way I am handling this. Because I cannot handle this. You are splitting me into pieces. The only thing that will heal us is being together, and I know this is what it is going to take for you to realize that, but until then I will fall apart everyday. I love you baby. Please get better for me.