A Reminder To Myself That This Is Not Love

i don’t love you. i know this is not love. love does not leave you feeling empty, shredded. fragmented in pieces

this is sadness. heartache. over and over. breaking only to repair, until you come to me in the breeze, in my nightmares and dreams, in last night’s trace of American Spirits and rough hands against my eager body. scrolling through old photos and the instagrams of mutual friends. this is draining, and depleting, and demanding, and depilating. nauseating at how much i still crave you.

this is unrequited, unresponsive, unthinkable, unavailable, unmatchable love for someone. for you. poetic in its tragedy of how much my heart sinks when i think of you. i still look up searching when i remember bumping into you. your touch still gets me high when my fingers graze a piece of you.

it’s the type of story that people tell at their wedding- how divine intervention collided them together, making it impossible to miss each other. that fate and destiny must exist, and every version of this story ends with you and i.

except it’s an ending i will tell over and over. alone, broken, gut-wrenching to the point of being unendurable. my daydreams confusing my hopes and reality until the version i twirl is inseparable.

i will not get to whisper it to our children and gush about how i knew you’d be the best dad the second i kissed you. i will not tell it among friends and cherry-noted merlot. it is not you who i will call with my daily good news, to discuss the mundane life activities. it is not you that my red lips with kiss, colors of permanence.

so instead, i tell it to myself. over and over and over. until the circles i spin twirl my heart into a knot to keep it from growing any more love for you.