Happiness should not feel like this, this agony of teeth and knives and the dripping of the blood from a torn heart. Happiness should be light and free and unconditional, a gift from you to me which I can treasure and honour and return in favour. You have done no wrong, no ill intention, and yet I feel the wounds where you touched me more keenly that from those who meant me harm.
It must be through emptiness, the lack of something what we once were. The way your glance skips over me now because I am no longer special, now insufficient and insignificant. This is likely deserving because while we both bear scars, yours are superficial and nonrepresentative of your power, whereas mine are great binding chains that hold me down. You fly while I crawl and lie in the dirt and gaze upon your terrible and powerful beauty and think about how happy I am for you.
I reach out in the darkness for your hand and wait. But nothing comes anymore. Perhaps we are just friends, which is why my heart skips a beat when you lean over me to talk to someone and if I knew any better I would ignore the way your shoulder rubbed against mine, the clues of a brainless teenage crush. But I am determined to give you the space you asked for, the boundaries you set, and it leaves me flustered and floundering and I know not what to say.
How do I hold the attention of a god? How do I tell you I still love you? I don’t need you to love me back, I think. But love is not selfless for once, which is distressing because it always was before and perhaps this is a character deformation, a new weakness in me that I need to purge to become human. I want you to declare me worthy, to look upon me in approval and declare that I am still good and kind and interesting. The way your gaze slides past me, your questions aimed at another, your thousands of friends I do not and cannot know. That speaks volumes to me.
I have seen you at your most and least vulnerable which is why I can see with certainty the way you present yourself as guarded to me and that hurts too, that erosion of trust and the fear of the new power imbalance. Because I would be vulnerable to you. Or perhaps I would not for I ran away, I lied, I left the room to cry because I could not stand it anymore.
Jealousy is a word, but it is not one I have ever tried to use for myself. Perhaps now it is apt because I yearn for you to look at me again. To ask for my opinion, my knowledge, my stories and facts. But I cannot because I have made nothing of myself and there is nothing left. I was broken before we left the space and I am still broken now. You must know this. Have known this. I’m sure you watched me fall and perhaps wondered if it was you, your fault, how I went from that brilliant person to what I am now.
And in my worst moments I worry that it might be. The way you reject, call out my reasoning for not making sense to you as though my differing priorities are a deficiency to be removed with cold logic. How hard it was to eke even the smallest compliment or approval out of you. How often I tempered and adapted and compromised. The painful hours waiting for a simple reply text. Perhaps these are damaging things, though not your fault I’m sure. I certainly would never hold blame against you.
The solace of privacy is that you will never read this, and so I can voice my deep fear that you broke me. I really hope you didn’t. That it was everything else, that the world itself is a breaking place to be because I still love you and want the best for you and could never blame you for anything. I’m glad you’re happy.
The first question you asked me was if love could ever be considered selfless and I said yes. I don’t want to change my answer. I hope you remain happy and healthy for as long as possible. I still love you. I’m still happy for you.
Happiness should not feel like this.