u/Independent_Air9380

I fear I always want what I cannot have. For me, that was you for so long. And then, I had you. I believe I am a Narcissist, and I believe I thought I had you conquered. I grew bored in our relationship. Comfort and a lack of anxiety have always felt foreign to me. I cheated. I belittled you. I know that I am the villain of your story, but at the time I could not bring myself to care. I was lashing out. I felt uninspired and unloved. I can blame your actions. I can say that I would not have done any of these things, had you acted a different way. But that does not make any of it right.

With you conquered, I thought I might move onto the next thing for me. So, I left you. God, how I was wrong. God, how I have been humbled severely for my hubris. The love I still hold for you rejoices at the freedom I've bestowed upon you. I know you're better off without my suffocating sort of love.

I feel as if this is all some lesson. Not the inspiring, hopeful kind. The soul-killing kind that leaves you without will to carry on. I made many mistakes, and no apologies I can offer you will ever correct that. I tore that beautiful, comfortable relationship asunder because, in my greed, I thought I deserved more.

I've realized, in the year since we parted ways, that love will not always be thrilling. It will not always be kind, and at times it can hurt. True love is the perseverance of a relationship through all of that. You deserved that from me. You never gave up on me, until the very end. You wanted to fix things and I stonewalled you. That isn't love.

Both of us made errors along the way. Both of us seem to have matured in the time since we parted. And still, that terrible, horrible thing lies between us. It is like some Lovecraftian horror lingering in the corner of the room. Always watching, hardly understood, and subconsciously felt. My mind will not let it die. Perhaps it has already died for you, and that is why you're so comfortable waltzing back into my life as a "friend".

I sometimes think of you as cruel. You know your effect on me. You know that I cannot sense reason in your presence. It is not a kind, caring thing. It is a primal, carnal desire that scares me at times. Never before have I had such difficulty restraining myself with another. Normally, it is I that is pined after. And here, we circle back into my desire for the unattainable.

This attraction isn't new to us at all. In the beginning, it felt like a dance. We laughed and you lead me along on false hopes and veiled promises. Towards the end, and even now, it still feels like a dance, if only a more malicious kind. You see your effect on me, and it thrills you to deprive me of it. You linger in my presence, though just out of reach. I catch the soft beginnings of a smirk when you pull your hand away, or the hesitance in which you walk away when I tell you to leave.

As Incel-esque as it might sound to say, I know you enjoy that attraction and attention. I struggle sometimes deciding if you also like the effect on me. The torture of my body and mind yearning for something so deeply but being unable to reach for it. That feeling- knowing that your very biology longs for something you know is wrong to have- is terrible. I feel like a terrible person. Why do I still want you? Shouldn't your recent silence be enough for me? Shouldn't I want someone who wants me back?

I carry this shame and self-hatred with me everywhere. I know it's likely not healthy, and I know I should seek help. But, is this not the penance I deserve? My loved ones say I did the right thing in leaving, but I suppose they would say that about any man I left. They don't know just how much I sacrificed.

And now, my thoughts fall into cycles as I wonder if this same insecurity led to the initial issues of our relationship. If so, perhaps I am worse off. Perhaps it is simply my personality that makes me incompatible with the love I desire.

I'm not certain if I'll ever know how to feel about you. I'm not certain if I ever want this wound to heal.

to the lion, from the stars

the rift between us was a mutual one. i’ve come to recognize that now, with a year of hindsight and distance between us. my emotions are a force of nature, whereas your own were always a pallet of muted colors. i’m certain we both had our own undiagnosed issues, but i was certain that the chemistry between us would be enough to overcome our differences of character. even after i saw what our relationship was doing to us, and i decided to end it; i mourned the love of my life.

i forget, at times, why it was that i pushed you away. i forget how many times i slept alone. i forget how many times you made an effort to humble me publicly. i forget how you rarely had any ambitions of your own. it was an odd sort of love. one where i seemed to take the focus of your world, and yet you scorned me for that. i relished in the attention you gave me but i believe at some point i began to wonder what it might be like to have a partner in life that didn’t seem to be subtly envious of me. i will always be the first to admit my issues, so perhaps it was all a ploy of insecurity and narcissism crafted within the depths of my subconscious.

i validated my decision to leave you by seeing how much more you resemble yourself now. you’re much more confident, if not jaded with the world and those around you. i validate my decision by trying to look at how my own identity has flourished since separating from you.

and yet still, i long for you in my life. i long for the warmth of your skin upon mine. i long for your arms around me at night. i long to share my errant thoughts with you throughout the day.

but we’re just such different people. we were perhaps never meant to meet one another, and yet you hold four years of my memory like some dead relative. my life is touched with your presence despite your absence.

we reconnected recently, in an attempt to be friends. i don’t think i can do that. it might be easy for you to comprehend a path in that direction, given your emotional temperance. but you know me. you know that will never be me. when i look at you, i want nothing more than for you to hold me. your face will be the one that i think of on nights with whatever unfortunate man becomes my husband in the far future.

we shouldn’t be friends. you jeopardize everything i’ve built for myself. i hurt you beyond measure. why do you want to be? your absence was difficult, but this proximity is unbearable. i can’t think about anything but you. and even those thoughts are the product of entropy and limerence.

but i don’t know if i can forsake this opportunity to have you back in my life. i’ve prayed to have you back, and now i do. should i not be grateful for what i have?