On Falling In Love As The Other Woman

“You are the most beautiful woman I have ever seen, and there is no one I’d rather spend my life with.”

Words. Words my entire being has craved since my first pass at romantic love. Words that flood my insides with warmth like a glass of whiskey on a brisk December evening. Words so sticky sweet, they bind the cracks in my self-esteem and I can, for a time, see myself as someone of worth. Words that, in this moment, mean nothing.

I am not the only woman in his life. In even my most shining of moments, when the moonlight catches my porcelain skin through a cloud of cigarette smoke and I feel drunk and beautiful and perfectly in love, I am still the other woman. Less beautiful than I feel, more drunk, and still in love.

He was always good with words. Phenomenal, actually. The bastard. Something about the way he could make me feel was unmatched, even when we were younger and I was less than interested. To this day I have never met another person who can string a sentence together quite the way he can. I hate him for it. I envy him for it. Mostly, I love him for it. Careful and deliberate with every single word that escapes his head, he amazes me with every line, every paragraph. Calculating and manipulative in such a gorgeous way. Unconventional poetry, so full of life and passion. Christ, he knocks the wind from my lungs with some of it. Especially when he writes about me.

I am nothing if not narcissistic. Reading beautiful words about myself is like mainlining heroin-scale attention to my self-absorbed, junkie soul. I can’t get enough, I am consumed by the mere idea of inspiring a man. Whether it be in art, or in sex, or in love, I long to be the source and muse of life-altering breakthroughs. I want wars waged in my name, goddamnit.

He used to make me feel like the center of the universe. Like he would rock a guy in the jaw for looking at me the wrong way. Like he loved me more than he could tell my heart with all of his flowery prose. More than he could show my body with his strong hands and brilliant tongue.

He still does. Until he doesn’t. When he’s with her.