It's gross how people have to exist around us, isn't it?

Ants crawling up our legs while we were just sat there, waiting, trying to relax.

The buzzing in our ears of flies, demanding attention that should belong only to each other.

The crooked, staring head of a praying mantis cocking it's large, staring eyes. Prying into privacy between us.

Butterflies nothing but a pretty distraction. Tearing your eyes from mine.

Mosquitos looking to us only for what we can provide to them. The blood that beats in your heart for me guzzled down their spout like a straw. Making your heartbeats for me ever so miniscule-y weaker.

Even rollie pollies a novelty that distracts your mind from my hand on yours.

Lady bugs just another thing crawling on you. Demanding your attention no matter the pretty sheen.

Bees spreading pollen that makes you sniffle. That makes me frown.

Lightning bugs illuminating your face but snatching the sparkle in your eyes from me.

Roaches invading our picnic and stealing our scraps like the fucking vermin they are.

All of them.

Everyone.

I hate it.

I hate every single bug.

No matter what size.

No matter if they're human or not.

Why does every single living thing have to tear you from me?

Have to hurt us?

I keep my eyes trained on you,

Your face,

Your reactions to the world,

And wonder.

Why can't it all just be mine?

Stupid bugs.

I don't like being alone.

I've been alone most of my life.

Staring at walls.

The ceiling.

Screens.

Feeling my eyes go numb from the light.

Grabbing at strings of affection from strangers.

Trying to fill the silence in my house with the words of people I'd never encounter again in my life.

Trying to fill my heart.

So why'd you fill it so easily?

I fucking hated you.

I struggle with you.

Annoying, asshole, dickwad you.

The one that has me addicted to a feeling that I can only achieve when talking to an arrogant asshole for an unfortunately extended period of time.

But still addicting nonetheless.

I've mentioned it before. How my family all have their vices. My grandfather had drugs. My dad has his games. Grandmother cigarettes.

Why am I stuck with you?

Are you worse for me than a cigarette?

The way you whisper at me that other people don't matter, you might be.

The way I want to believe it. The way I feel my fingertips shaking as I try to imagine the penalties if I don't.

A life without you, devoid of you, sounds painful now. Sounds gross. Icky. Repulsive.

Even a lack of you for a day turning me crazy in a way I don't quite understand. Feeling my brain go dry and peel like paint in my head. Flaking away in my skull.

I don't like being alone.

Hate it, actually.

And if I have only you?

You'll leave me, sometimes.

The attention when I listen, though. When I comply with your orders like a daft little dog. It feels like a high dose of a drug I can't name, but I know should've been apart of my genetic make up from the start.

Like a dream I don't wanna wake up from, the heady feeling leaving me hypnotized as I grip my phone tighter, feel my heart grip tighter. Feel everything tighten as I feel the words "Good girl" caress my heart like a spell.

The promise of pets.

Of reward.

I feel it in my throat.

I feel it in my soul.

It doesn't matter if it's not real.

It doesn't matter that I'm a loser. Lesser. Worse. A dog.

I'll bark when you ask.

I'll roll over when you command.

Shake when you ask.

And I might, maybe, just listen to your words when you tell me nobody else appreciates me.

Your promises that I don't need them.

The isolation seeming a little warmer when the promise of your return is melted into the word. Intertwined in it.

Like your vines that are eating me up.

Strangling me slowly.

Turning me into a part of you.

A part I don't ever wanna come back from.

Am I ever truly alone?

If you and I are the same?

I hate you.

I hated you.

I'm bitter towards you.

You.

You you you you you.

I don't want you to matter to me.

I told everyone how much you annoyed me.

How much I hated you.

Whined over and over and over about how miserable I was.

How they should hate you too.

How they should share in my bitterness so I wouldn't feel so alone in it.

I still feel bitter towards who you are towards me.

I hate these stupid feelings.

So why the fuck did you force me to have them?

Spoon fed them down my throat and made every word of mine a confession.

Made time without you go by slower and time with you speed up so much that days are going past now without me even noticing.

Without me giving the world at large a chance to notice me.

Buried in a phone and texting endlessly.

At beck and call like a dog.

A special kind of pathetic that twists a pit in my stomach and a smile on my face.

You like that, don't you?

How pathetic I am?

How much more pathetic I can be?

It's something to laugh at. To poke at.

How I dance when you tell me to with a bitter look on my face.

How much fun I am.

Am I the same?

Am I special in any way?

I push down those feelings.

I should be worried about other, more important things.

But you don't give me time to, do you?

I don't remember falling into this routine.

Why am I getting tired when you are?

Why am I fighting basic bodily functions just to find myself tapping on my phone till my thumbs go numb?

Why am I so pathetically yearning for you to come back the moment you're gone, basically throwing a fit?

When you do the same, is it sincere?

Or some other way to play with me?

I twist the charger in my phone port, too afraid to tell you it's at 3 percent. Scared you'll scold me for letting it get that low.

Even more scared that you'll say it's fine. That you didn't wanna talk anyways.

I'm stupid.

I'm an idiot.

I believe every single word you say about me. Trusting in your words more than I trust myself.

Doing just about everything you ask.

Hating every moment of it.

But loving the feeling of listening.

Do I deserve better than what I get?

I feel weird when you say I do.

Feels weird when the emphasis is constantly on how pathetic I am.

How much worse I am than you.

I'm a neet.

I'm a mess.

How I should listen.

How then, I'll be a good girl.

How much my heart soars at the words making everything swirl in my head and stomach.

Why am I forgetting my other worries?

Why are my priorities shifting?

Why do I want your approval this damn much?

I hate you.

So why do I go along with your every word like gospel?

I'll have to hear in the morning how this was too direct. How I should've had more artistry in it. How you're proud of me for doing it regardless.

And I'll feel stupid for listening.

Stupid for being here.

Stupid for not hitting that block button after our first argument and staying in my lane.

With my own feelings.

My own intentions.

But here I am.

A little victim, actively snorting you like cocaine just to edge off my alcohol addiction.

So close to overdosing I can feel the drool running down my neck.

Can feel the last little sparks of my brain cells before they die off.

Feel the spark in my eyes dim.

I hate you.

I hate you.

I fucking hate you.

But it feels too good to let go.

I don't want my attention to fade away to someone else.

I want it to stay mine.

Your eyes on me.

Like it was ever actually mine in the first place.

I hate you.

Sweet dreams.

Goodnight.

Woof.

Try again later?

The life I want feels so far out of reach.

The love I need feels impossible.

Everything feels impossible.

-----

I wish I could just hold love in my hand and not let it go.

I know it's like a balloon. I know it wants to drift away from me. I see it so clearly. And no matter how hard I try, it'll always slip away. I'll get too comfortable in it. I'll relax my fingers. I'll let a butterfly passing by distract me. And I'll let it go. And it'll fly off. Because that's what it's meant to do. I hate that it's what it's meant to do.

Why do I want love more after having a taste of it?

Like a drug.

Why is it always a drug?

It'd be so much easier to find this in a bottle and take the pills one by one. To overdose on it and never have to worry about finding it again.

No balloon is going to feel the same in my hand.

Nobody is going to feel quite as addicting.

Or will they?

Will someone else feel how you feel to me?

That's a scary thought.

One that I crave but find terrifying in equal measure.

If anyone out there could mean this way to me the same as you, then what were my feelings all for?

What was the build up, the hurt, the insanity- what was it all for.

I want it more than anything, to feel that feeling and know the rush is there and to breathe it and have it in my face again. The love of another person with barely having to chase. To have it dangling in front of me like a cat toy I can almost grab but not quite, instead of a toy that's been taken to another room entirely. At least if I can almost reach it I know it's still there.

But I don't want all that chasing I did for your love to be worthless.

I need love. More than anything.

But why does it feel like I need yours the most.

Sunk cost fallacy?

Or is it really just that special?

Are you that special?

Were you the only one who loved me how I needed to be loved and I'm never going to get that again?

And why is every thought about this scary and comforting at the same time.

I know it's time to move on.

I know it's safest to move on.

I know my desperation has a place in someone else's heart.

But how much I fucking yearn and crave for it to be in yours.

I know it's not true.

I know you don't feel the fibers of your heart being ripped apart against the grain like I do.

I know you don't feel the way the electric signals try to force it to beat anyways. How the blood flows back into it and out. Warm on my chest before pouring out to the floor cold.

The muscle in pieces. Just a dead muscle now. But still trying to beat like it did when you were here and feeling with me. The warm kind of beat only someone who could leave at any time could give.

The dry mouth from the sight of you walking out the door. The kinda pain that makes me wanna rip my eyes out the sockets so I don't have to see it again. Scrape my brain clean of the memory until I can't even remember words anymore because they all just connect to the emotion.

"Gone?"

What's that mean anymore?

The word feels heavy on my tongue as I try to force it out. Like something that should make sense to me, but just doesn't anymore.

It's easier to choose to be stupid and deny the reality than to think for a second you'd actually leave me here alone.

Let my brain go empty and soft. Let any sense of sharpness fade into a dog-like personality covering the numbness of it all. I don't need to think anymore. I just need to be happy when I see you and empty when you're gone.

Instead of this fucking aching that permeates the mind and tries to infect me like a disease.

Do you know you've made me disease? Addicted?

The hurt feels good, you know. If I cross my eyes and close them and stumble forward blindly like an animal.

I can make it feel good.

Like something I deserve.

Knowing you're being punished for something you deserve to be punished for is a twisted sort of pleasure.

Like something you earned.

But what does all this feel like to you?

I wish I could live in your thoughts and watch the cogs turn in time. That I could crawl inside the mechanisms and see how much space I actually take up in it when I'm not there.

Your heart is the majority of what is on mine, but I doubt I'm even a fraction of yours, even as I explore the depths and watch exactly how you tick. How you move. How you feel.

One question. If I disappeared forever, would you feel any sense of guilt beyond the fact a person was lost?

Would it mean anything more because it is me?

I know it wouldn't.

I know I don't matter.

I know that my pain is entirely self inflicted.

Like wounds on my skin that just won't heal.

Wounds I keep picking at.

Wounds I let fester.

That I let get infected by you.

I wonder why I don't hate the idea that I don't matter at all.

Is it abandonment when you didn't even care if they were there?

If I could bottle my feelings

And give them all to you

I wonder how you'd see them

Within your point of view?

Would they twist and turn, like something living?

Or sit dead like a rock?

Would they change into every color?

Or just look like a plain, grey block?

I feel my feelings sparkle,

Do you feel it too?

I hope my feelings are special.

That's why I gave them to you.

The way the stars align

No one in the world can see.

But I think I can see them blinding

When you look at me.

I think demons try to haunt me

Is that bad to say?

But when I hear your words

They all just go away.

Destroy my expectations

The build them up again

I hope that if you're not in my life

You still can be my friend

I think I hear your heart beating

A pounding in my head

Maybe I'm insane

Maybe it's mine instead

This poem isn't going right

It isn't going good

Nothing in my life

Is really going like it should

I hope and hope and hope

That I can depend on you

That you're what keeps my life on track

That you can be my glue

But maybe you're just something strange

A person just like me

That gives me all these fucked up feelings

Nothing else matters.

The end.

In my mind,

Your eyes are on me always.

My every action scrutinized and analyzed,

Leaving me scrambling as I try to build up a pretty picture of a perfect person just for you.

What do you want me to be?

Who do you need me to be?

The thoughts are running through my head whilst I simultaneously just try to be me.

As I try to future plan by making sure you know who I am authentically.

I don't want to trick you, after all.

I want you to love me for who I am in the end.

Because who I am is much easier to maintain than someone I'm not.

Is it sad that's the only reason?

I feel the thoughts running through my head at full speed on how I can keep you around, how I can tie you to me forever, even though we haven't even known each other a fraction of our lives yet.

But you fulfill my life's purpose.

You give me what I need.

What I always needed.

Shouldn't that be enough?

I don't know if I'm addicted or obsessed or if it's love or infatuation but the feeling is like a drug that I crave more than food or water or air.

The gentle words and my heart beating out of my chest and the warmth that comes around and the butterflies I can feel flying down my throat and straight into my stomach.

The way I can feel every pulse of my blood flowing through my veins and my eyes practically dilate with a need that can't be satiated and I don't know if it'd ever be understood.

The way other people are less interesting now, the general world melting into shades of gray and beige but bursting into light when you're back.

Rainbows and sparkles tossing into my eyes and magic in the world feeling real again.

You give me the illusion of a future where I'm more than what I am. Where I get to be yours and get to love you and that's enough to live off of if I blur the lines enough.

My body cherishes the impulse to wrap you in a net of codependence that melts us together like the heat melts ice cubes into a spill and then evaporates it into the air.

My emotions center near constantly around your happiness, your wellbeing, and when you'll be looking at me next.

It's not enough.

I'm not enough.

How do I do this? How do I not fuck it up? How do I manage to keep you around? How do I live life when you aren't here?

And why do I feel this way already?

I'm weird and I'm normal and I'm a freak and I'm sweet and I'm obnoxious and I'm

I'm hoping I'm exaggerating for this poem right now.

Because I feel your eyes on me.

And I'm getting scared spilling my guts like this over and over might just scare you away.

I hope not.

Because I want to be your home.

And I need you to be mine.

When it comes to obsessive love, how much of it is nature vs nurture? I believe for adults in which the impulse sticks around in, most of it is nurture.

Teenaged hormones will almost always be overwhelming enough to cause some semblance of obsession with a crush or partner, something about those hormones combining with the firsts of it all making the mind go overtime- a natural concoction of the period of life regardless of your upbringing, if a bit rare. Something you can essentially 'grow out of'.

But when it comes to adulthood and you're reaching your mid twenties and OH GOD you're past your mid-twenties??? What the fuck has happened- WHY are you still like this, unstable emotions and toxic attachments and all as an adult?

What really is the cause?

For me in particular, I can point a definitive finger at my trauma and work out some complicated system blaming that, even though I don't think about it all too much. Robot out some explanation on how this action is directly corellated to this, pull out strings and slowly make a board out of a bad crime movie as I connect each incident with each other. As I slowly work out the cause and effect of my life as if I wasn't a dynamic, changing person.

At what point is it my trauma's fault I am obsessive and clingy and general a nuisance to those I really actually like- a need to be dependent on them seemingly rooted down in my soul- and at what point should I know better? Should I stop myself, have the awareness to separate myself from my emotions and just... calm the fuck down?

I dislike men- to the point of near fearing them- but I crave an older brother figure to protect me because of my particular trauma. I have a preference for feminine people because of this aversion, but tend to prefer feminine men as an instinct. Someone the opposite of the person who hurt me but just enough like them to hurt them back.

It's a weird mix of feelings to have.

To crave being dependent on someone. But to know I'm an adult and that I shouldn't be dependent. I really, really shouldn't be.

But I end up in this same pattern anyways, right? A physical dependency on my parents to survive, an emotional dependency on my friends to manage my mental health- I live as selfishly as a baby but without the excuse of infancy to justify it.

(Related negative thoughts on weight discussion in italics for this paragraph, feel free to skip this portion)

And it's odd when you're chubby or fat because emotionally it can personally feel like a physical representation of what you are- a glutton. Wanting it all without lifting a finger. Spoiled rotten and round to prove it, like Hansel in the witch's hut getting rounder and rounder while watching the Gretel's in your life slave away. Except with the potent self awareness that life is eating you both up regardless in the end. Eating you up and spitting you back out like bubblegum, just to end up stuck on the bottom of someone else's shoe. Knowing at least you were alive when you were in someone else's mouth. Craving at least that sensation once more, just yearning to feel alive rather than a sticky mess on the sidewalk.

But part of me can't help the selfishness. Makes up ways it can be healthy in my head.

"Codependency can be healthy"

I'll wax and wane on the thought for hours at request, without much push back because I'm talking to people predisposed to agree with me anyways- you lot instead of a therapist.

And most of me really believes that- Codependency can be healthy.

But I'm also monstrously self aware.

What I am isn't codependent. Codependent requires the Co- part. The mutual leaning on each other.

And what I tend to lean towards is complete dependency.

Draining a person dry of their ability to function as I use them for my own.

Tell me to shower. To brush my teeth. To eat.

Carry the mental burden for me of my existence. Provide for me. Baby me. Smother me in love- at least I'll give that back in spades if I really like you.

But is love enough to justify existence?

I don't really think it is for me.

I do think it for every single one of my loved ones though.

Is that a self image issue? That somehow I'm less worthy? Or is it just reality?

I won't be outright with my trauma here on a public forum, but I really and truly believe that the amount of traumatized I have become comparative to the amount of trauma I've experienced doesn't line up.

I've seen people with much more horrifying experiences than me function to a hyper independent degree. Never needing anyone. Healthy relationships. Healthy look on life. A true, living Phoenix from the ashes.

The only people I see doing worse than me are also people with worse.

So how did I end up here?

I honestly, short of self neglect, don't display my mental health issues outwardly too often. I tend to try and keep my emotions under control. I typically succeed, because the way I love other people isn't any of my family's business. Even on days I'm suffering I'll mutter out some sanitized version of the situation. That I'm sorry I'm just feeling a little bad because of someone not talking to me. Neglecting to inform that I'm having a meltdown when back in the confines of my room. Attempting to quietly sob and panic into pillows. Feeling pinpricks in my brain that say hurting myself could maybe be a relief. Pushing those pinpricks down again. Trying to resist for those I know who love me while simultaneously not giving a single shit about anything that happens to me ever.

But is this all justified?

I look back on my life and see how this cycle has continued on with every version of me.

Loving too hard and then hurting even harder when it's gone.

People call me relatable for it here when I decide to tap out my thoughts.

I wonder if it makes them as miserable as it makes me.

I wonder if I had been born a man if the way I love would've been considered gross rather than something to look at with a smile.

If people knew what I looked like short of posed selfies- the majority of my life being perceived online creating a warp of how I feel about my appearance, constantly feeling like Im catfishing and unloveable in reality- I really wonder if I'd be treated worse.

I wonder if I'd be told I wasn't worthy of being dependent on someone like I crave.

I wonder if I'd be told I don't deserve anything.

I wonder if I'd be sexualized just the same, because even if I don't have perfect looks, I can still be used for gratification.

I wonder if men who don't understand would hate me, because at least sexualization is one step closer to love in their eyes.

Honestly, this is why I find myself drawing to feminine men. Or sometimes other obsessives that happen to be men.

I love women too, but they intimidate me somewhat like I don't deserve them because they're something that can be victimized in my mind and I feel like a perpetrator everytime I like one (not including trans men, a fair in between and compromise for some reason to my brain, who really knows on this one).

Regardless, to the previous point: Feminine men and obsessive men also tend to be sexualized to a fault. We are able to find a middle ground to talk about and understand each other with and it feels safe to discuss. It feels like companionship when you find someone who just... gets it. Gets how it can feel good sometimes but other times hurt. How it can get scary. How it can be too much. How you end up craving just that romantic love all over again but feeling even farther from it because you default to a sexual object in people's eyes. Or an object in general. A tool to reach their own goals.

I find myself running out of steam here just thinking about the reality of what I am to most people like this.

I'm either a burden or a tool.

And unfortunately it's the smaller part of me that craves to be a human. To be someone who can stand on their own. It's a disgustingly small part of me that craves to be an independent adult.

I crave being a loved burden. Someone who can lean as much as I want. But never be hated for it.

I doubt I'll ever get it though.

A wry conclusion, but I hope I learn how to drive and get a job.

At least I'd think about all of this mess less.

A common problem in obsessive communities is loving too easily.

I thought I might've been immune to this problem at this point, since nobody I had communicated with had caught my attention in a long time. My attention still stuck on someone who wasn't in my life anymore at this point. My rationality and sanity stuck with them, even as they were surgically removed from my sight.

And so I sat there, ambiently floating through. Apathetic to the people I'd see floating next to me through life, being held afloat by my best friend who I happen to be extremely codependent on, just making it through each day in a mild manner and casually yearning for something more but not seeing any reason to see the impulse through.

That is until my best friend revealed he'd searched for and found the thing I delayed, something I had assumed we could just lean on each other instead of searching for, but discovering his craving for it pulled the whole plan apart in a big burst of confetti.

And so my breakdown was legendary and blah blah blah.

Anyways, I thought I was immune to loving too hard and fast like every other person I encountered in these parts. People who would get grossly dependent on a person when they didn't even know what the back of their head looked like, didn't even know their favorite colors, or the color of their eyes.

I thought I was better.

But when desperation settled in for someone to lean on?

I discovered I was just as weak to the right words from the right person as everyone else.

And I discovered exactly why I had decided that loving like that wasn't what I wanted to do.

That it was too hard.

Too upsetting.

Too addicting.

Addicting really is the word for it.

The addiction you can get for people in such a short amount of time is something I hadn't imagined myself experiencing again until I was forced through the withdrawals of it.

Until I was still currently knee deep in the withdrawals of it.

You can live without affection for a whole year but the moment you have it for 5 days and it's gone on the 6th? You won't know how to live without that affection anymore. The skill lost like a car's engine rusting over.

Experiencing deep withdrawals of all the chemicals that were irresistibly tempting. A bite of the forbidden fruit you'd known not to even touch but couldn't help but let your fingers rest on regardless. To dig your teeth into. To swallow.

5 fucking days, if that! I didn't bother to check.

That's all it took for me to end up swimming in my God damn feelings like a fool again.

And now they're gone.

And I don't think it's anything I did. I don't think it's my fault, just a pure coincidence dragging them from my hands while I'm left bereft of the warm fuzzies that had infected me like a parasite.

They could come back the second after I toss down this post and I'd still have to live with the embarrassing fact my body and brain reacted in this way. In a pure panic over someone who wasn't on my radar a week ago that has suddenly left it.

And why the fuck did I let myself swallow down an idea I objectively don't need in my life? That I'm actually someone who is worthy of love even when my contributions to society are nil and my ability to be a functioning person is even worse off, in the negatives I suppose.

And I sound so fucking stupid saying this shit and feeling these words in my mouth as I try to process and swallow down feelings that feel so fucking strong, a fire stoked by the tiniest spark that shouldn't have produced a match's flame let alone the fucking forest fire I feel.

I'm so fucking stupid for thinking I was better than an impulsive, annoying, sticky and tar laden love that drifts through impulsively and clings to you.

I'll get over it.

I'll forget it.

If they never come back I won't even remember this.

So why does it hurt so fucking bad to be without them for a day?

Coffee chugged down. Games played. Distractions numerous and not working a single bit. Nails chewed off. Skin picked. The amount of time spent asleep and trying to get the feelings off of me only to end up dreaming of it instead.

I'm so fucking stupid to let myself get infected.

To welcome it.

I'm so so so fucking stupid.

I hope they come back soon.

So the depths of my affection can be their problem instead of mine.

I'm selfish.

I know it's not even in their hands.

But please come back.

I'm selfish.

And I'm an idiot.

I just want to feel that love again.

Just for a second.

Please.

CW: Self harm mention.

​

Isolation comes naturally with obsession.

​

Not a necessary ingredient to the pot, but one that's sometimes too tempting to avoid adding.

​

Managing your emotions is easier when you have someone you can lean on.

​

When you have one or two people you can depend on.

​

So what happens when they're gone?

​

Asleep at night while you lie awake in a panic.

​

Maybe they're even the cause of your emotional distress.

​

Or worst of all, maybe the person you depended on is gone from your life entirely. Voluntarily or otherwise.

​

Where are you supposed to turn?

​

To strangers?

​

To the greater internet?

​

Clinging onto casual acquaintance's feet like they have any obligation towards you whatsoever?

​

Or do you turn to your own arms? You really shouldn't. Your cat is sitting on you as you type. Wondering what's wrong. Rubbing along two bandaids and giving you little kisses. Trying to help but unable to. Or maybe she just wants your attention. Either way you don't give it.

​

Nobody really talks about the embarrassing parts of obsession. It's common for anxiety to cause stomach troubles. Puking. Shitting. When something shifts your place in a loved one's life, you're basically tied to the bathroom sometimes. At least if you have my disposition. The bathroom tiles a place that's so tempting to bust your head on. The ringing feeling doesn't really help though. And then you're just staring at your tears on the floor wondering what the fuck you're supposed to do with yourself.

​

Would it really be better to just text strangers? To occupy your hands and thoughts with anything else?

​

Probably.

​

But can you force your body to do that?

​

God knows.

​

Opening up to strangers is a mixed bag anyways.

​

Mean messages.

​

Cruel messages.

​

Perverted messages.

​

Even boring ones feel painful sometimes. Like you had a chance to feel better but just got it tossed back at you.

​

You're the entertainment.

​

You're the distraction.

​

Not them.

​

And you should've known.

​

You're always just the entertainment.

​

You aren't really a person- just a way to pass the time.

​

Even if you get treated like a person they don't understand. They never really actually understand.

​

They don't feel their emotions with their whole bodies.

​

They haven't lived the life you have.

​

So how can you depend on them when they aren't you?

​

But how can you depend on yourself?

​

Therapy isn't an option here. You wish it was, but it just isn't.

​

Being hospitalized isn't either.

​

You can't go into further debt over this.

​

Your normal coping mechanisms all feel tainted because the person who brought this issue to your doorstep, as much as you love them, has tied themselves to each way you cope with your struggle.

​

Every coping mechanism has a tie to it all that just makes you wanna cry all over again.

​

So who does someone obsessive depend on?

​

I don't actually have an answer here.

​

I don't even think I want an answer to this one.

​

I'm grasping at straws and actively drowning and just kinda getting out small pathetic gasps out rather than screams for help.

​

I'm not going to die.

​

I won't.

​

It's just not an option for me.

​

But I'm still sinking under.

​

I'm still feeling my skin become water and my eyes fade into blue.

​

All of me melting into the heat of the ocean. The depths of the currents sweeping all of me away in bits and pieces.

​

My toes becoming crabs walking around. My ears becoming fish. My intestines an octopus. All of me wriggling away in different directions as I get torn apart by emotions.

​

Who do you depend on when you feel this way?

​

Or do you just have to feel it?

​

How can I feel it?

​

I wish I didn't have to feel it.

​

But I'm going to feel it anyways.

​

Nobody.

​

You depend on nobody.

​

And I know that's not the answer.

As long as I'm codependent with my best friend, I'm ok.

​

As long as we need each other, I'm ok.

​

I can never be replaced. We will both be alone with each other forever. And it'll be ok. Because we will be there for each other. Forever. Just us.

​

But then reality settles in.

​

More like slams in.

​

Everything changing in a few words.

​

And every little part of my world getting shaken like a snow globe.

​

I wasn't ever going to be enough.

​

Why did I ever think that?

​

Even if I was the favorite I was never going to be enough.

​

It was selfish of me to think I would be.

​

It was selfish of me to deny reality.

​

Every little bit of me is selfish to my core.

​

But I thought love was supposed to be a little selfish sometimes.

​

I thought that was ok.

​

That people liked when you held onto them a little too tight.

​

Always getting told it was cute.

​

Right until they want to squirm away to someone else to feel their embrace too.

​

Admiring how much softer it is.

​

How much comfort they can gain from someone that isn't me.

​

How much love they can give that somehow isn't mine anymore.

​

The heart has limited space, you know?

​

I know because I carved out mine just for you. Emptied it of the rot, drained it of the puss, labeled out a spot just for you to nestle in. Nice and warm.

​

Trusting you to treat it well.

​

But you let the rot settle in.

​

And I can't even blame you, it's my fucking heart!

​

It's my burden to bear and I should've just taken care of the damn thing.

​

Should've, could've, would've I guess.

​

The heart has limited space.

​

I'm sharing yours right now.

​

And it's getting more cramped.

​

I try to ignore the feelings of the walls closing in on me.

​

I try to smile and grin and say it's ok.

​

That I don't feel myself about to pop right out.

​

That I'm not the mess I know I am that just wants to dig my nails in and stay forever.

​

I need to get over myself.

​

I really do.

​

But I thought I was safe.

​

I thought it'd all be ok.

​

And now I don't know anything anymore.

Loving obsessively and hating yourself is a definitive form of torture.

​

You idealize the person in your head. Lift them up above all others, while pushing yourself down to the bottom rung. Creating a distance that makes them seem unreachable even when they repeatedly say the opposite- but the way it's rooted in your brain that you are unworthy makes it too difficult to believe them.

​

Makes them annoyed at you for essentially calling them a liar.

​

And if you don't know if they like you back?

​

The feeling of being a creep buries in your heart.

​

Hard like a rock, the perception that you're just essentially a stalker locking into your mind, furthering the emotional distance between the two of you. Creating a gap that you can't cross without violating boundaries your mind has set up without you even realizing-

​

'"I can't cling too hard. They'd be disgusted to know I like them. I can't engage. I can't do anything."

​

A mindset locking in that leads to an even deeper obsessive spiral despite the emotional disconnect.

​

When the ideal is right in front of you, how can you not help but continue to bury yourself in every bit of information you can find on them?

​

In fact, you have to treasure it deeper, because you aren't going to get that information by talking to them, are you? No, you can't talk to them. You don't deserve to. You'd gross them out. Disgust them. Scare them.

​

So worship the scraps you can find as they leave that little bread crumb trail that you find so delicious, your stomach still left growling after every bite. An appetite that'll never be cured because every step you takes just leaves you hungrier than when you began.

​

When there's no information? You're left starving. Aching. A hole in your heart you can't even temporarily fill with shapes that don't quite fit but work just enough to plug up the leak that's formed deep inside you.

​

But that ache isn't their fault.

​

It's not their fault they're too perfect that you want for them like a drug.

​

It's your fault for not having the confidence to love, that you can't make yourself feel everything in full because you know you're just too horrible to. That you're a curse rather than a person. That your love is inherently something evil, that it's something to be kept to yourself.

​

I hate how it all builds up in my head.

​

I hate how much I hate myself.

​

And I hate how it pushes people I love away.

​

I just want my whole heart to be love that I can pass around like candies.

​

I want it to be full and blooming like a bouquet I can give to someone that I've locked eyes on.

​

But I can't even make it grow leaves anymore.

​

The flesh dry to cracking.

​

My eyes reflecting back at me in the mirror dead as they analyze my looks. My situation. All of me. Each piece ending up in something twisted and full of self hatred.

​

How can I properly love you if I can't love me?

​

I don't know the answer.

​

But I'll force myself to love myself through any means necessary if it really means I'll find you. If I'll find the love that'll make it worth it.

​

Just let me lay in bed for a few more months first, ok?

And now it's my birthday.

81 days since we ended it.

This might be my last post to you.

I'm sure that'll be a welcome break.

I wonder if it'll be easier now that I'll stop squirming like your eyes are always on me.

I think I've found my footing now.

A bit wobbly but still standing.

Like you told me I would.

I guess it's a bit moot since I'm still posting to you.

But that should be done I think.

Any posts from now on more abstract.

Less targeted.

A birthday present to myself to wash my brain of the yearning I got cursed with.

I get reached out to a lot now.

People begging for me to feel for them how I felt for you.

I don't really get why.

It wasn't appreciated with you.

But whatever.

Two people reached out today, actually.

I'm nothing special.

Just a girl shaped thing.

I guess that's special enough.

I'm a little relieved my world has stopped spinning around you as much.

I still get overly sad sometimes.

Like I let go of apart of my soul.

I guess I'm a different person now.

I'm scared of people now more than I was before.

I'm less friendly.

I'm more guarded.

It's harder to have a conversation with me.

And I'll go days without replying simply because I'm too scared to.

Or it seems like too much.

Everything seems like too much.

But it's ok.

I'm 27 now.

Being older and still aching feels gross.

Like my mind is doing my body a disservice.

My words flow easier now at least.

Not towards people, but towards a page.

That sounds so cringey.

But it's true.

I can write stupid shit all day.

Little vents that I pull out like rotting teeth.

It's easier than talking to a person to plop every feeling out like this.

Easier to not have to open my real soul to people, instead just splaying it out.

I have less friends now. Or maybe the same amount.

I've been cycling through now.

You taught me that people can be cut off and the world won't end.

Isn't that fun?

It's simple.

My heart beats easier now.

But it's harder to make it skip a beat.

Nobody talks like you.

Nobody is you.

Tell me happy birthday.

It doesn't have to be where I can hear it.

Just say it so I get to be on your mind.

Sorry for loving you too much.

Happy birthday to me.

I hope that I never feel the need to puppet a chat with you through this account again.

Retiring to painting words in a hopeful daze instead.

Time to blow out the candles.

Goodbye to whoever you are now.

I love you.

If you see this it's your own fault, you know.

-----

It's been 70 days since we stopped talking.

And now it's your birthday.

Last year I sat in this same spot, baited breath waiting for the time to switch over. To send you your birthday present. Excited for your reaction to the drawing I made. Hoping I was the first to wish you a happy birthday.

It'll be the first birthday you'll have without me in two years.

I used to think that our birthdays being so close could be significant somehow.

That it could be some sort of cosmic destiny tying me to you.

That it was a sign that my heart could be tied to yours.

Logically I've always known it didn't really mean anything though.

And now I'm left with the rot in my heart of knowing my first birthday without you is soon coming up as well.

You left off with a cryptic message that you'd always be watching.

I wonder how true that is.

Somewhere in my soul I know it stopped after maybe the first week. That you got the validation you seeked in my messages and then ditched. That you don't look at my profile like I look at the corpse of yours and dust the bones for anything that'd trace me back to you.

I'd prefer it, really, if you were living your life. If you were happy like it seems everyone who leaves me is lately.

I told my friends, some of who you don't even know, all about the plan to post on your birthday. I think they thought it was some sort of epic win on my part. That I'd dunk on you. That it wasn't just pathetic I was posting about you in the first place. As if knowing I still think of you isn't effectively a birthday gift in the first place.

I know by this time next year the hurt will probably be gone. I'll have forgotten the significance of this day on the date of and it won't matter anymore. That all of it will become excitement for my upcoming birthday and mourning of all the people who seem to pass close to it, leaving this world while the date of my birth feels like a black hole trying to gobble my loved ones up. A strange paranoia around the date climbing up my back.

I've stopped saving videos for you. I used to put them in a folder and daydream about showing you someday. Some cute little thing to show I still always cared. I still use the earbuds you got me. Thinking of offhandedly every time I put them in. I saw your birthday drawing a couple days ago while flipping through for drawings to show the new people in my life to prove im an artist. The feeling of ache reaching in me.

People approach me all the time looking for something from me. I can tell they're looking for the me before you. Looking for the me that could get attached from I love yous and nothing more. The me that would put a collar on myself if it meant I could get more of validation you gave. The me that craved nothing more than your messages, that you'd spare the time for me while you were busy, that you'd send me pictures so I could fawn.

I know they want that me. But they don't exist anymore.

I watch myself floating through life and I lay there feeling my brain melt out my ears. Craving a stiff drink at every chance. Still feeling heartbroken and unable to crave hope.

I feel like the seriousness of how much I was truly tied down to you gets watered down when I explain we were never together. I feel like people don't understand or judge me about it. I feel like people don't realize how much I really did love you. How hard it is for me to love anyone else.

It feels like you were the first of many people who I've found will tell me they love me and then turn around and not a week later. I didn't realize how common those people were until you. I didn't realize it was a trick.

My best friend tells me you were tricking me but out of all of them, I think you were the least. I don't think it was a trick. It still feels like a punishment. Like I picked the wrong choice in the dialogue tree. Like a lack of complete devotion was the wrong choice and now I'm still stuck in the bad ending when it should've taken me to the credits and menu so I could start over.

I'm sitting in the same spot I did a year ago. Not my bed and not my home. Feeling a dread that I didn't know my body could handle. My hair wet from forcing myself to shower. My body not feeling hungry even though it probably should. My face suffering the consequences of trying to perfect it, overplucked eyebrows and moisturized as much as I could manage. Trying hard to become some semblance of pretty so I'll be worthy of love if I ever come across someone else I like again. Feeling doubt in my heart that'll come to pass with the way people feel to me lately.

I think instead of craving love, I need to start craving something else.

I think that but I can't feel it.

I wish I could love someone as much as you right now. I wish I could beg for them to comfort me like I used to all those nights. I wish I could cry to them and get told that it was ok. I wish I didn't feel so alone even with people messaging me every day wanting something from me I can't give.

I hope my birthday this year feels good.

I hope yours is too despite it all.

Happy birthday to the you without me.

May you be unrecognizable and happy.

And not the you I still love even if they're gone.

Because if you were still the same that might hurt even more than if you were completely different.

Make a wish.

Sweet dreams.

I love you.

Have a good life.

"I'm different now!"

I say with a smile,

And then later that night?

I'm scrolling through the ghost of you.

Trying to catch a scent to find you all over again.

Images upon images of others I couldn't give less of a shit about.

Essays of text I skim just to test the sound in my mouth and figure out if it's you.

That's not what you'd say. That's not what you'd do. That's not what you look like. None of it is you.

My nails bitten down to stubs and my heart pounding and beating like a drum. My mind swirling with what could've happened to you. What you could be doing. Who you could be with. Why it isn't me.

Paranoia settles next.

I know you know where I am.

I'm right where you left me. Sitting in the same spot like a dog abandoned.

Pacing around a pole. Feeling my leash get tenser as my circles get smaller. Walking the other way. Feeling it get loose again.

Too loose.

I hate when this leash feels too loose.

If it's tight at least I know someone else is holding onto the other end.

Or at least it feels like it.

I'm a church leader now.

I give sermons on my blog.

Words and words I spout out that reflect my heart and bring reverence to the congregation.

Likes and reblogs abound.

Attention aplenty.

Abundance personified.

Messages filling the inbox to the point of spilling over, abandoned on the ground and flapping away from me.

Nothing else feeling right except the tug of my heart strings you still have on me.

Even in absence.

It's fucking annoying, you know.

The feeling that my missing piece is no longer apart of my world.

The feeling that it probably was just a piece I was cramming into myself to feel whole but I wasn't making them feel whole at all.

I'd rather just break.

I'd really genuinely rather just break.

Poetry is just paint splashed upon the walls at this point.

A desperate cry for help I'm not even sure who I'm screaming to.

A need in my heart I can't fulfill without the help of other people and other people feeling like monsters who want to hurt me to make themselves smile.

At least you expected nothing of me.

At least I wasn't anything to you.

A dissociated life brought back to a harsh reality.

Feeling each tooth in my mouth and every fiber on my skin.

A sensory nightmare accompanied by the feeling of missing you.

The worst feeling of all.

I'm never getting it back, huh?

And nothing else is filling the void?

What a rotten shame.

I thought my heart was bigger than this.

I'll keep passing it to people like it's a game of hot potato for now.

Giving in to the hype of other people even if they terrify me. Even if I feel like they might rip me apart.

Hopefully someone will hold my heart someday.

Hopefully it'll all feel warm again without ever finding another peep of you.

Or maybe I'll get to know you're ok.

I wonder if it'd hurt more than never knowing.

Seeing you ok without me.

I'm pathetic.

Listings upon listings.

Products upon products.

Various taglines, upselling each individual to its fullest potential- or at least attempting to.

Words and pictures plastered all over.

So I put up my picture too.

For sale like an object.

Desperate words trying to convince passerby that I'm the best deal they'll get-

Customer reviews stating quite the contrary.

"Too clingy, tried to get me to stop spending time with my friends- 1/5 stars"

"Made fake phone numbers because I blocked hers- 1/5 stars"

"Weird- 2/5 stars"

But those don't matter, do they?

Everyone here is a product just as well as me.

Desperate for a love that may never come.

For a forever home without threats of returns.

Each of us defective in our own way, hoping for someone who will love and appreciate our quirks as we learn to love their own.

So why does it hurt when I feel like a product?

Why does it ache when I feel like a bruised apple on the shelf, eyeballed and judged?

Like a piece of meat- all my bits of meat splayed across the counter of the butcher as people judge which of my parts are passable- which can be let into their homes?

"That review actually is kind of a turn on"

I get approached with leering eyes, an attempt at an earnest compliment feeling almost worse than the rest.

Part of me wishes I wasn't the pork on the table but rather the pig at the farm.

Wishing to be adopted in as a pet rather than eaten whole.

All of me wishes somebody would just take me home already, to decide my fate so I don't have to decide mine.

To force me to find my love upon them.

To keep me.

So that I don't have to do the same to another and feel the same hesitance and resistance I end up tossing to those around me.

I wish love was enough to tie me to another person.

I wish that there was just a string at the end of my pinky I could follow and follow until I find my person.

No struggles at the auction as I go to the highest bidder, as I go to the one that fulfills the most of my requirements just as I do theirs.

I wish we could just know.

But instead I'm online shopping.

Just as disgusted at myself as I am with others.

Hopefully I'll at least keep making some new friends.

Maybe that's all I'm good for in the end.