The Little Voice

The little voice in my head it kept me going forwards not back to you. I admit you had a hold on me, but we weren’t equal. It wasn’t healthy for me to hold you so highly.

I lay in bed thinking of the times we shared. It seemed so perfect when you held me in your arms. I can still smell your scent, it burns sickeningly sweet in my nose.

It’s true I miss you. I miss that feeling you gave me, all the moments I felt complete and alive. The little voice reminds me of all the other times.

I held my stomach crying. You left me again, here alone. You had your issues to work out, your demons to fight. You brought mine to my front door. There’s permanent streaks of gray on my cheeks from the tears you have made me shed. I felt like I bled for you as my heart ripped in two.

You came back. You said you loved me. I breathed my first real breath and felt my blood pump in my veins once again for you. You said you would never leave again and then you did.

I remember the days fading into weeks bleeding into months. They play vivid in my mind like a movie I’m being forced to watch.

The times were good. There was no screaming, no harsh words being traded back and forth. We were together, complete and happy. We walked hand in hand down the street. We breathed in the night air and looked up at the stars. They looked like a thousand fireflies lighting our way.

I lie beside you on the blanket covering the grass. The sun burned bright in the sky. The heat warmed my face as we talked about life.

I sat on your bed in your room. Your fingers interlaced with mine as we listened to your new cd. The playlists you made for me and I made for us still live in my player. I play them every night.

You didn’t think I noticed the day your fingers weren’t wrapped around mine but I did. I told myself not to think about it. It didn’t mean anything. First you didn’t hold my hand and then you wouldn’t sit as close as you used to. There was a space between us that grew ever wider. I changed and you changed. Our love changed. The times felt like they would never end but everything ends.

In my bed I lay staring at the stark white ceiling that might as well be a black hole. I listened to the songs on the playlist you made me that conveyed the love you felt and how I felt. Love seems like such a tangible concept in those songs. Everlasting love seemed possible. How could something you felt so strongly not last forever? I listened to the words and the disconcerting rhythm of happiness.

I play the movies in my head and remember the blissful feeling as the hole rips and tears inside of me. One day I’ll yell stop! The misery will end. The hole will heal itself. My tears will run dry and one day, maybe, I’ll trust in love again.

For today, I let them play and prepare for that distant day in the future now by promising myself I’ll never go back to you. No matter how many times you tell me you love me or how sorry you are and how much you regret leaving. When you say "Please, I promise. Look at me. I’ll never leave. We were made to be together forever." those empty words will fall on deaf ears.

That blessed day in the future will never come if I stay with you. A cut can’t turn into a scar if you’re constantly reopening it. I’ll move on and so will you. We’ll find something better than this constant suffering, a middle ground between the pure emotion of love and the sorrow it brings.