When I saw your name pop up on my screen once again, I should’ve driven myself down to the nearest body of water and thrown my phone so hard and far it would fall to the bottom of the world, allowing the earth to swallow my phone and the memory of you with it. 

I told you it was not good for me to be friends with you, we tried to make it work and failed miserably every time. 

Some people are not made for each other.

Your mere response was “I know”.

You knew exactly what you were doing.

I always knew and have been told how you use me for your own needs but I feel like I am a mere pill you pop when you miss the thrill of me, the thrill of knowing that I loved you regardless of all the things you showed me, and all of the things you did that should’ve caused me to run and never stop.

I was the first one to stay, the first one to give you chance after chance.

I walked in circles constantly, always winding up right next to you.

I wanted you, all of you. I wanted the parts you hid beneath your sly smirk, the parts of you only she hears about behind closed doors with a clipboard in her hand documenting anything concerning, which we both know is most if not all of it.

You didn’t want me, you needed me, and you still do. 

I told you I was done, and while we meant that in the past and ignored it, this time I meant it, truly. I held my own, I didn’t go back, even when I was clutching my stomach tight with a clenched jaw and chattering teeth and the mere sound of the song I once shared with you that meant a lot to me, and ended up being “our song”. Because that’s what you do when you love someone you give them the best and worst parts of yourself, you share your favorite things. I gave you all of me, more than I ever gave myself. 

You always told me you didn’t intend to hurt me, and wanted to give me the world.

I thought I was just being dramatic, fostering illusions that you were manipulating me and gaslighting me, because your speech that you were just a broken boy who didn’t mean to hurt me felt too real at times.

But in reality I was right, I would awake to the world you promised me in tatters.

So much of me physically hurt. 

Once we ended our late night calls I would sob, allowing the cries to rack my body of all serotonin. I couldn’t have all of you, and that haunted me. 

You took, and took, and took everything I had left at that point in my life. The worst part is I let you, I let you for a mere compliment about my body and how much you supposedly loved me. 

Your actions screamed while your words whispered. 

I would tell you what was bothering me, you would make yourself the victim and make me feel at fault for needing more from you.

And you were right, it was my fault. 

It was my fault I didn’t look at myself long in the mirror and let laughter fill the void and ask myself “what the hell am I doing?” and simply concluded he’s not worth it and moved on with my life. 

You were right. 

You have a new girl that you call your everything, good. Yet you're still finding every way you can to reach out to me to be “friends”. 

You're gone on every virtual platform yet you still shatter my heart and run through my brain, a constant reminder of the price one must pay for loving someone else before you love yourself.

Leave me alone. Please, let me go. 

You never had me in a physical sense, we never had the chance to throw our arms around each other like we dreamed of but your calloused hands still grip my heart every time the distractions quiet, reminding me of what you put me through and what I let you put me through. 

Your arms are suffocating my brain still, putting every once of your strength into stopping me from reprogramming my brain into thinking I deserve somone who is good to me, not someone I feel like I should fix and the right to gaslight me and manipulate me into staying.

I hate that you're name comes out of my mouth everyday, it feels like a sin to say your name now, when it once was the cause for a massive, stupid kid-in love grin.

My mother knows everything you put me through, she agrees you should leave me alone along with every person in my life. But, finally I agree too, leave me alone. 

Daily I have to put medicine on the scar I received over where my heart resides for trying to fix you and making your problems and needs my entire world. 

I thought love was supposed to feel like this. 

I thought because I couldn’t go a minute without checking my phone looking for a text from you calling me “love” and needing to be in constant contact with you that we were in love.

I was at a lost, determinetial place when we met, even then I destroyed myself for you.

All for you. 

Over and over again. 

My moments of clarity were clouded by your implantation that I loved you and that I needed you. I had always wanted to be loved, you gave me below the bare minimum, and I let it suffice. 

Despite the trauma you gifted me, I am now the strongest I’ve ever been. I sometimes revert back to finding boys with empty promises and false sweet words. I haven’t completely broken my addiction, yet I have been sober for about a week or so now. Sober from the pang of emptiness I feel at not having someone, and the desire for you to come back.

You always came back, but I found the strength deep within me to push you away, farther and farther every time.

Within this I have found myself, found a power I have never felt.

The kind of power that courses through your veins allows you to get up in the morning with a smile and end the night in bed with a smile.  

I have fought every day to be here, I was fighting before I met you. I was healing, I was getting better. Until you came along and pushed my back underneath the current.

I just sank to the bottom of the ocean letting you hold me there, I would flail and struggle every once and a while, but I stayed there for months and months.

Now I am above the surface treading water with ease most days, and fighting when I’m not.

I see your figure approach here and there, but you can’t over power me anymore nor even get close enough to manipulate me.

When I lost you it felt like I lost a piece of myself.

A part of me will always be yours, you can frame it and show it to your friends, letting them know I was the only one who actually gave you the time of day and treated you right.

I showed you the realest love you had ever felt, and you threw it all back in my face when I didn’t say what you needed to hear, didn’t sneak out to see you, didn’t let you ruin my trust with my family.

Make sure to tell them that too, tell them all of it. 

Within that loss of you I found a whole new half of myself that I had been missing even before you.

I found the part of me that loves myself, and doesn’t waste time on loving you. 

I just listened to a new song by the same artist as the one I let you take from me.

The melody sounds as if it is going into the same strum as “our song”.

But it doesn’t, it’s its own beautiful harmony.

The song is called “keep me”.

And this time I will keep this newfound gem to myself. 

I went to share it with a guy that I’m a little interested in if you will, and I stopped myself,

because this song, a mere tune with words made me feel more beautiful and at peace than you or any boy ever has.

Just by merely roaming around my room, listening to this song by myself, makes me feel whole, makes me feel at peace.

And I found that feeling all by myself, without you or anyone else.