Rz – Page 2 – Forever a Pretender

Indigo

can we compare notes?
can we call a truce, but not sugarcoat?
not to save the sinking boat,
nor to romanticize the abuse.
it wasn’t all rainbow, i know.
there was no excuse.

but even so.

i’m not here to attack,
i just really need to know.

fifty days of no contact.
are you just laying low,
waiting for me to pull you back?
or have you completely let go?

and when you do look back,
what is it beyond the shadows
of all the fights and setbacks,
what is it that echoes?

was it bittersweet heartbeat,
or something above and beyond?
would you call it love,
and is it all gone?

fifty days of silence.
have i been replaced?
at the point of no return,
am i completely erased?

was it all just a show, an act
i was meant to outgrow?

was everything an artifact
now that the sky turned indigo?

Good Girl

Do not call me a good girl.

It’s a name programmed in my brain.
It activates pain, it pushes me to perform
to the point that I go insane.
Else I’d catch a snowy storm
and raging hurricanes.

But I was so devoted. So hungry for validation,
for being doted on, and drowned in adoration.
So committed to gain approval.
Submitted myself, at every beck and call.
Just to feel safely small.
To float in a constellation of emotions.

But then free fall.
Like a rag doll.
After all
Left alone.

So do not call me a good girl.
Or baby girl,
or sweet little girl.
Or any girl at all–I’m a woman.

But
Do not call me YOUR woman.
I am not yours.
Nor do I want to be.
For I was his.
And look where that got me.

The Center of My Universe

I didn’t start this relationship with you with the idea that I would be getting crumbs of attention. No, just a sip won’t do. The whole reason that I fell for you was because I wanted to drown in your love. Engulf me. Swallow me whole.

When you acted as if my presence was enough for you, as if I didn’t need to put on an act, I didn’t need to perform… You made me feel like you not only accepted me, but also adored me, cherished me, and celebrated me. When you acted as if no details in my life were ever insignificant to you. When you placed your eyes on me as if I was the center of my own universe.

Those are the reasons I fell in love with you. Those are the reasons my heart keeps pining for you. And when you’re not here it’s like my heart tries to claw itself out, rip my chest open from the inside, tear myself apart so it could reach out and grab you.

Lebay. But it does feel like that, I’m not joking.

But the way you’ve been treating me this past month has been less than acceptable. I was made to wait on you, work hard to earn a shred of your affection. Like when you slept with your ex and I felt you were pulling away from me. You made me think I was just imagining things. Like I was just hormonal. Overly sensitive.

I bent over backwards waiting on my hands and knees, be the best girl for you to earn back your tenderness. And I thought I finally did. And I was happy.

But then the Reddit DM thing happened. Again I was being stone-walled, gaslit, manipulated. I was made to think of my sins and repent even though I didn’t do anything wrong. I was pressured to admit guilt over something I never did. You were trying to crack me open under pressure. Instead of just… Communicating with me like I was your girlfriend.

But nah. I don’t think you think of me as your girlfriend anymore, and I don’t know when that stopped. Although you did say I was your woman, your best girl… But I don’t think you think of me as an equal to you anymore. Let alone putting me on a pedestal.

You put me in the backseat. Heck. The trunk maybe. I kept trying to chase your shadows and beg for crumbs of love, sleeping with notifications on, waiting for your messages. Ears perked up with every notification, never dared to let a minute go by before replying to you. I was so parched, that I felt like I had to be grateful you scrapped together some attention for me.

Maybe I was too much for you. But can you really blame me for being clingy to you when you were the one who trained me to depend on you? To count on you to catch me when I fall? To count on you to come running if I just rang the bell?

So all the way from your health problem to your ex to reddit DM to your mom to your office to your vacation… You haven’t been present, but I get it. I can take the backseat. Sure, why not. I try to stay still and wait until your life calms down a bit and you’ll have more time for me. It’s okay. Life happens, but you’ll save the last dance for me won’t you?

And through all that I held my end of the bargain so to speak. I texted you first thing in the morning, and the last thing before I went to sleep. I had been a very good girl. I’m bruised and battered and bleeding holding my post to keep being connected to you. But then what did I get?

You still questioned if I cared.

When the real question is, do you?

You don’t.

Somewhere along the way in this relationship the tables have turned. I am now the one pursuing you all the time. I’m the one panicking over losing you. I’m the one simping. I’m the one feeling butterflies when you told me you loved me.

How did it end up like this, I wonder. Maybe sleeping with your ex had made you realized that sex can be good be anyone else, it doesn’t have to be me. Or maybe it made you realize that you wanted something in person, and I do not fulfill you enough.

Or maybe you were never actually the loving, doting, passionate man who fell head over heels for me. Maybe it was NRE after all. Maybe my time is up.

I’m done.

If you weren’t gonna freely give me your love, I don’t want to chase it. If you weren’t gonna shower me with your attention, I’m done begging for it. If I no longer make you happy, so happy that you smile yourself to sleep just because I was there with you… Then why am I even fighting so hard for you? If you weren’t gonna cherish me, adore me, anchor me to the center of my universe… If you don’t want me. Then why am I stubbornly staying?

I have done all I could. And I’m done.

It was a heck of a journey. But I’m still glad we met, and we gave it a try. I’m still glad cos you made me feel things I have never felt before. You showed me the kind of happiness I didn’t know was ever available or even possible for me. If I could pull through, one day I can give myself a real chance at a love like that.

But for now I need to find ways to face my fears. Of the dark, the silence, the most vulnerable seconds right when I’m falling asleep. Cos those moments are when your ghost haunts me the most. Your warmth, those sparkles in your eyes, the soft cotton on your shirt, your twinkling smile. Your love for me. Sweet dreams that sweep me off my feet and make me lose my balance again and again… But they’re not real.

The reality is… You’re not here.

I read this somewhere and just had to write it down.

To love deeply without expecting permanence.

To find peace in the ruins of expectations.

To stop asking life for guarantees it can not give.

To respect the endings you didn’t choose.

To forgive yourself for things you could not prevent.

To accept that nothing we love is truly safe, and still choose to love anyway.

To remember beginnings are born from ruins, not from control.

To trust your hands enough to begin again.

417 days. It was fun until it wasn’t, amirite?

You were my calm, my anchor. I used to say you put me at the center of my universe. You provided me with the intimacy of being heard, being seen. You made me feel like I was worthy of love. And I thank you for that, from the deepest of my heart.

But I guess now we can finally say we tried our best and it just didn’t work. I guess now we can finally say we’re incompatible. That the timing doesn’t work. That the distance doesn’t work. That our situations don’t work.

That we’re simply not meant to be together.

I knew that there was no possible future in this lifetime in which we could be together the way I wanted us to be. And yet I gave it a try. And dare I say, I gave it my best. I really did all I could.

And I know you loved me as much as you could, too. Through affection, attention, and desire, you have sustained me for as long as we were together. However, when my burden became too real it grew beyond what you could care for. Not your fault, it’s totally fair. I know what you wanted from me: The fun, the escape, the playfulness, the fantasy that can take your stress away from your daily life.

But when my burdens became too real, stress and financial struggle changed me into a sad person. Stressed and anxious. Funny how not having money made me focus a lot more on money and sometimes I can’t even think of anything else. Let alone sex. And so I failed to provide you with the same lust, lighthearted playfulness, witty banter, the carefree jokes.

This was not what you signed up for. I get it.

I think we’ve just both reached the limits of what we could / were willing to give. Maybe now we can finally admit defeat.

Ashes

She stood silently, watching her castle roared into a blaze.
Not by war, nor betrayal. She had brought the fire herself.
The flames danced before her, mesmerizing so,
despite the ruin in their wake.

No more banquets shall be held in this hall.
All wine evaporated into the air.

Why would a Queen burn her own throne, one may ask.
She stared, teary eyed.
I was cold, she said.

Gone were the cherry pies and rosemary lamb,
for all she could taste was ash.
And her clothes were frayed, but who fucking cares,
when the cinders keep her bare feet warm.

And on, the fire crackles, filling the night with its echoes.
She raised her face and gazed at the ashes of her crown,
flying up, up, up in the air.
Then she whispered a question.

Is this all there is?

The fire hissed,
but it did not answer.

Echoes

He came into my life like a fiery tornado I never saw coming. I thought I knew fire; I played with it, traced its edges, and let it flicker on my fingertips. But I guess I underestimated how much it could burn. How much I would burn.

His gaze lingered, smoldering against my skin. I could still feel it on my cheeks. His touch left embers around my neck, branding me in ways I couldn’t name. His love was like a wildfire. Feverish, unstoppable, a blaze so fierce it consumed me whole.

And fuck, wildfires don’t just burn, they roar. No. They roar, they crackle, they hiss, they fill all your senses until all your reality is them. But you know what’s worse? The deafening silence it left behind.

Cos now I walk through the ruins, haunted by the echoes of his fire. The scars on these trees. The ashed grass. The black smoke in the air. That ringing in my ears, the moment I realized I was alone.

Except, I could still hear him, loud and clear. Everywhere I look I can hear him… Or at least I wanted to.

But when I stepped forward, hoping to hear more clearly, all that answered was the echoes. Unforgiving, blaring, hollow. Remnants of something that once roared so loud.

I asked for a loud love.

Not to be left alone in the echoes.

A Loud Love

If the Buddhists were right and after we die we get reincarnated, I may be reborn into a new life where I don’t know you. With a new body that hasn’t ever felt your touch. A new set of eyes that have never seen the way you look at me. Lips that have never tasted your kiss. A heart that has never skipped a beat because of you.

And yet I’m sure I will bear a soul that aches for your love.

Cos you really are my “once in a lifetime”. And I don’t know if you’ll ever believe me, but if after this I live another life or two, or ten, or a hundred—I would yearn for you in every single one.

Yes. You proved it to me. How yours is the kind of love that’s so loud it echoes through every corner of my being; A love so loud I’m sure it traverses beyond my existence. Even in a new consciousness, as a new stranger all over again, I may not feel truly alive until your love reverberates through my pulses once again.

So find me again, will you? And again, and again, and again. Keep being stubborn for me, won’t you? Until we meet in the life where we can finally be together—Fully. Truly. Loudly.

It’s Not Real Until It’s Real

There are so many things I could say about him. The fact that he saw me just being myself, he liked me, he pursued me, and he persisted. I was so sure he would give up within months, but somehow the more he dug the more he got stuck. It’s hard to believe, he not only accepts me however I am, he actually wants me. Whatever I throw at him he gladly takes it. He can skillfully handle me. Contain me. Tame me. But above all, he adores me to no end. How did that happen? How was that possible?

A lot of times when I see happy loving couples on social media I treat them as fiction love stories. They’re not real and I may never experience a love like that. And I have accepted that as a fact, because the reality is I am stuck in a life that I thought I wanted. The life that I worked to build, but turned out to be so lonely. So suffocating.

Maybe that’s why I didn’t understand how it can be viscerally powerful: The feeling of being the object of someone’s intense affection.

But then he taught me that. He grabbed my hand and dragged me back into the center of my own universe. It’s unbelievable, the way he saw me, he understood my shortcomings, my toxic traits, and yet he still adores me anyway. It’s honestly hard to believe. And that’s why I kept saying, it’s not real until it’s real.

But then he sat across from me and smiled at me and stared at me like I was the only woman ever existed for him… Now it is real. What am I gonna do about it?

He’s my once in a lifetime. It’s fucking heartbreaking.

Crash and burn

I let my guard down, and then you pulled the rug.
I was getting kinda used to being someone you loved…

I guess it is unfair to hope that infatuations will last forever. People will admire you for a little bit. They might even obsess about you for some time. Until you make a mistake and slip and fall down the pedestal. Or maybe even if you never did anything wrong, eventually they find the next newest, shiniest thing. Whichever one comes first.