Perhaps it’s the number of lovers that’s battered you.

All the girls you wanted a future with, only to realize it’s not possible, and the one that’s loved you madly, but you only decided to give her a shot once she’s found someone else to make a home with. I’ve heard that story countless times and the town knows you by it too. Still, I never mentioned her, or any other of your exes, nor will I ever ask of them. They have loved another version of you which maybe loved them too. Nowadays I cannot know of your younger self, your more naïve self, the one that perhaps could have not only hold me tightly into his arms, but in his heart as well.

“I couldn’t play Robin Hood and steal someone else’s girlfriend”, you once jokingly said about the time we met. I enjoyed your company as much as I enjoyed the cup of coffee my lipstick clung onto – my then boyfriend’s gift – even making a note in my diary without any premonition what one day you’ll become. The trigger for old wounds just as the one for care and affection I didn’t deem myself capable of. A strange mirror reflecting back at me all my flaws and hidden potential. The perfect playground for growth of the most painful kind, the shattering of all the illusions and armors I’ve hidden behind. By now, you are so much for me. My wish and fear at the same time, my hope and despair, my affection and resentment.

Never did I think myself at your side, being the source of your lust yet failing to induce the love that we both wish for. It’s really a pity, I sometimes think, that life’s had its way with us before we could offer the best we’ve had to each other. Like this, we’re only reminders of how people and years can wear you out so even when you find the person that’s looking for exactly the same, you struggle to find it together. Maybe it’s also a pity that I can’t let go yet, albeit not truly believing in your promises of rising from your ashes once more to offer me the very best of you.

Refusing to travel the dark path with me, all the hurt and wounds we trigger in each other remain unresolved. You reject us, out of fear or lack of strength. All of them have battered you, taken away parts of you that would know how to appreciate each part of me in the way you’d wish to now, but simply can’t. The guilt is there, written all over your face, and it hurts seeing you like this. Nevertheless, it hurts more living like this, removing myself gradually from the unity we strive to create. It’s not a burning pain, one that tears you apart and leaves you a mess which someone else could potentially sew together again with lots of patience and skill. No, it’s a dull ache with the traits of a parasite, slowly consuming all the best of me until I, just like you, become hungry for life and its joys, but unable to participate anymore.

Let’s laugh our pale laughs from the sidelines, let’s hold each other tightly in an embrace that communicates more than our words ever will. When our bodies touch, there is no pretending, no hiding: the raw and ugly truth is there and we are the warm comfort to each other, the full acceptance, the gateway to love. Words are sneaky in their game of hide and seek, courageous enough to form, but too cowardly to appear. And didn’t we both have our share of failure and heartbreak to let the cycle continue again and again?

Still you lead a waltz around it, and in the middle of the dance, I cannot feel the music anymore.

Perhaps it’s my innate ability to see the pain in other people, the messes that they are, the darkness residing within them. Perhaps it’s impossibility of hiding from me that makes you pull away, afraid to be revealed. Perhaps no other could see it, loving a role you took on and sincerely aspired to become sometime, one fine day. But you called for me before that day could come, pulling me into your arms yet fearing the nakedness my eyes can see. With my forehead to your chest, my view is darkened, it’s only your warmth I can feel.

Let me hold you in silence, you whisper in my hair, and I cannot break free.