How To Single-Handedly Destroy Yourself
Meet a boy outside 7/11 in Soho on a Friday night. He is a whirlwind of great thoughts and a volcano of disarrayed stories. Let his words fill you with a storm of fantasies and illusions. Wonder why you never met him through your group of mutual friends. Fall for the whiskey coated honesty that he whispers to you that night. Kiss him when he says you are too good to be true. Be the girl that feeds his ego and let your guard down too swiftly. Realize he has walls that you will never be able to tear down. Try anyway. Fail hard.
Drink the coffee he makes you that is spiked with too much sugar on Monday mornings. Believe him when he says I’ll think of you all day, pretty girl. Discuss poetry and philosophy when you lie on a rainbow carpet in his living room. Tell him you like the way he talks and record a video of you two rapping Lose Yourself at 2am. Laugh until you cry. Catch yourself speaking with his accent. Grow attached.
Let his addiction slowly become your addiction. Start filthy habits that you don’t want to keep. Let them fuel the excuse as to why he doesn’t call you at night. Notice the change from pretty girl to your surname. He tells you not to worry about the voices in the background when he eventually calls. Drink too much to cover your insecurities. Comfort him when runs to you with broken fists and bloodshot eyes. Ignore the warning signs. Let him call you his lighthouse. Believe him. Don’t sleep.
Run into him at dinner with a prettier face. Argue in the street and become consumed by your own madness. Lose him. Lose a big part of yourself, too.
Let denial become your middle name. Feed your insomnia by writing about him. Create shitty art in the name of being honest. Hate your own words and become a tornado. Consume yourself with self-loath but laugh it off with your coworkers at lunch time. Falling apart is a part of a greater process, you tell them. Feel completely lost within your own silhouette. Pace your short breathes and slowly move forward. Grow from this.
Walk around the city with a boy you met online. Like the way he looks at you with his blue eyes. Spend your weekdays at basketball courts and weekends on his rooftop. Exchange your favorite novels and watch his collection of awful Western films. Write each other satire poetry when you are at work. Wonder what you want from each other. Nod politely when he decides to get back with his ex-girlfriend. Play with the boundaries of your new friendship and drunkenly kiss him. Apologize. Let your infatuation for him grow. Spiral. You break your own heart.
Meet his parents unexpectedly and lie about how you two met. He breaks up with his girlfriend so you comfort him. Spend the night but never kiss him. Grow more confused when you have dinner with his grandparents when they fly into town. Walk along the harbor front and tell him you can’t do this anymore. He gets back together with his girlfriend. Go to his apartment to pick up your things and kiss him in his kitchen. Make him feel uncomfortable and get asked to leave. Let his last words haunt you at night.
Grow sick of your own depression. Blame the city. Blame everyone but yourself. Oscillate between the color wheel of your mind. Pack up your bags and move away. Be a cliché. Meet someone else. Forget the lessons you had learnt in Hong Kong and accept secondhand love.
Repeat vicious cycle. Your own damn fault, your mind says.
Repeat.
Repeat.