u/Equivalent_Base_4299

The deeper you go towards the ocean floor, the less light refracted, and one of the things you stop being able to see first, is color.

Sometimes it feels as though I’ve been stuck deep underwater, with no color, for far too long. Hearing muffled, perspective limited, scared, isolated, yet oddly enough, I have started to let this feeling in. I have started to let it cradle me, as if it could provide me peace.

I repeat my mantra through heavy seasons, and pretend that my struggles are naught, at least for now.

Life is full of ups and downs. You cannot have pleasure without pain. You cannot have wisdom without experience.

I wade water, and in every season, I think of you. A fantasy.

In another life.

All good things must come to an end. This reality can be impossible to accept. There’s a feeling that will tell you the end is coming, far before any of the words do.

There’s a flip your stomach does, telling you uncomfortable truths, knowing that something is not right, that something once settled is now not at ease.

There’s a sickness that builds, waiting for a shoe to drop, with the knowledge that when it does, your reality will crumble. There’s a volatile restlessness, one in which you’re desperately grasping for straws, for life preservers, for solid ground, anything that will make this precarious situation resolve, even if just temporarily.

The scared child you once were has turned into an experienced adult, with lived in trauma. A part of that child always begs, subconsciously, to be seen and chosen anyway. A part of that child, with an innocence I am jealous of, will never know that you cannot have pleasure without pain.

I am in an odd stage of life. One I hope you never fully understand. I wish I had then the wisdom, the perspective, the knowledge I have now. Perhaps I would have known what to do with it.

In another life.

Naivety means lacking experience, wisdom, judgement.
Ignorance means lacking knowledge, information, understanding.

Perhaps blaming it on my age then will make for a semi valid excuse. Yet what is my excuse now?

There is not a moment of the day where my
brain does not want to drift to you.
There’s not a moment of the day that doesn’t remind me that you’re out there, progressing forward with life, while I stay stuck, in my fantasy lands of what ifs.

What does it feel like to be wanted, loved? What does it feel like to be wanted and loved by you in particular? Do you laugh? Are you held or comforted when you cry? Does your heart flutter when you hear them say your name? Can you melt into them, only ever wanting to get closer? Do you crave their touch constantly? Do you only ever see them? Is being with you pure ecstasy?

Naivety. Ignorance. Bliss.

I pump myself full of lies and distractions to keep my thoughts of you at bay. I must have lost my mind, just as quickly as I felt I lost you.

In another life.

I have come to the conclusion that a part of me will always think that you were the one. My person, my soulmate, my better half, the part that completes me.

Is that unrealistic? Perhaps. We picture our futures so differently in many stages of life only for few, if any, of our predictions to come true. We keep our fingers crossed for closed doors that may open, and we wonder “what if” in the meantime. Is there a door that opens to you again?

A part of me will always know how hard I loved you then and how hard I love the memory of you still, that I was so convinced you were right for me in all the right ways. That we fit together so well, too well, perhaps it is all delusion.

Did you feel it too? I beg, I plead, did you feel anything close to what I felt?

Lie to me and tell me you did. I’m missing pieces.

In another life.

The one that got away. It’s a common enough phenomenon to experience, I suppose.

Am I yours, the way you are mine? Will it forever be that way? Will I continue to think of you daily, silently questioning “what-if’s” that form my fantasies? Will it always, deep down, be you?

I have been in awe since we first locked eyes. I knew then, what I still know years later, even if it is wrong. I will always, in some way, be yours.

Let’s lock eyes again. I will want to walk up to you every single time. The consequences, the problems, I’d feel them disappear the moment I felt you come into contact with me. How silly of me, to once again want to run to you, when I know I shouldn’t, I can’t.

I don’t think either of us are religious any longer, but I pray for you. I hope you’re loved, taken care of, happy, and healthy. I wish only the best of best for the best of the best. You are so worthy.

In another life.

I laid my head on rock bottom as if it were a pillow, and allowed myself to make it my home, as if the only stability I thought possible for myself came with the knowledge and acceptance of defeat.

I have built up these walls one by one with my own two hands. As blood, tears, and sweat ran endlessly, and I screamed and begged for help and no one heard me, I stacked bricks on top of bricks in front of my heart.

Who are you to be let in?

I looked at my reflection only to see monsters, and wondered if that’s what it truly meant to be human.

Have others have seen the monstrosity? Do they hear the snarls and watch me gnarl my teeth, always expecting a reason to bite?

I used to beg for a savior, for a relief. I thought softness saved. I wiped the blood off of my hands and gave a grin and hugged and then got stabbed in the heart, time and time there after. Never again.

I used to think soft people deserved soft eulogies. I used to think that suffering is not endless. I used to think you were my soul mate. I used to believe in romance. I used to believe in us, and myself. I wanted to believe in love.

In another life.

You blur the lines between pleasure and pain for me. Physically, mentally, what a natural feeling of ecstasy you’ve always given away.

You play with my mind, while I pretend that my body is my own. There is no dancing, theres just me pleading with myself to forget, to move on, to distract more. There is no pleasure without pain, and you are the upmost reflection of the epitome. After a while, pleasure and pain can become exchangeable, playing hand in hand with the same results. Sometimes, the lines get so blurred, you can not tell the difference between the two anymore.

The line between pleasure and pain, the line between love and hatred, when do they separate?

When will you get out of my head?

When will it be you.

In another life.

In my adult years, I haven’t slept much. I’ve developed some sort of insomnia. It’s 2 am now, and as I stare at the ceiling, I think yet again of you. There will never be anyone who litters my mind the way you have. Almost a decade has passed, and I still check my phone every morning, like I might see something from you. I look for signs of you in every little thing. An invisible string, tethering me to you. An unhealthy, humiliating, undeserved string. A string of hope and fantasy. My string of delusion.

I will think of you endlessly, and admire you from a memory, as if it is my religion. Unwilled, but deserved. I miss you. I hope you have no reason to miss me back. I hope your life is so full of love and appreciation, you don’t even think of my name.

In another life.

I have now aged another year. No birthday pancakes. No balloons or cupcakes. No sign from you. Just a very busy mind, and an inconsolable soul. I’ve wanted nothing more than to hear from you. I’ve wanted nothing more than the delusion of reciprocation. Proof that you know I am here, needy for you.

I will not get relief to the craving. Despite thinking of you when first waking, and seeing you somehow in my dreams, I know that there will be no scratch, no satisfaction, no cure of my addiction to you. Years go by, and still I’ve yet to cope. Id give the rest of whats left of me to have you in my life again.

In another life.

I enjoy waking up early, when everything is quiet. I like being able to start my day in the dark, rising with the sun. My thoughts come in easier, seemingly much more clear before the days tasks and emotions muddy my thought process.

I think a large part of me thought that growing up meant running from your past. Yet when I look in the mirror, I see traces of that little kid. I get glimpses into who I used to be, who I was growing up. There’s so escape from yourself, from your memories. There’s no running away from the life you’ve lived, the fears you have, the questions, the loneliness, the longing for worthiness, for somewhere you fit in, for home. What’s home look like for you? Does it feel good? Is it peace? Where’s the line between love and hate?

I miss you. I wish I could truly know you now. I have always been selfish I suppose, sadly. I like to think there’s an invisible tether, how narcissistic is that? I couldn’t ever blame you for severing your end.

In another life.