#ignoring texts

When I wake up to your text after days of silence, I first check the time. The time at which you reached out to me. If it’s after 1 am I know to not take it seriously. Your feelings at night are not consistent with your actions during the day. And I’ve lost all patience for you to figure out how to reconcile the two.

If replying to my texts feels like a task, something you have to put on your to-do list and something you keep procrastinating, then don't. Don't message me. I'm not saying this in a passive aggressive way. Not in the least. I'm not even saying it in a way to mean that I understand. I'm just saying this because when you do finally reply, I feel it in your energy. You may bombard me with a series of texts and sound excited and genuinely interested but I know you're not. And that's okay. Just don't reply. Because then I am obligated too and I hate forcing myself to do something I don't want to but I just can't leave messages and emails unreplied to? I mean, I'm really trying. And I think I'm getting better at this skill slowly. Ignoring messages of people who want things from me. Ignoring messages of people who want me to be their emotional dumpsters. Ignoring messages of people who think it's an obligation to check in on me. Replying to them feels like a task to me too. But I? I never text you with either of these motives. I text you to share poetry I came across and I know you'll love. I text you to share the most adorable and aesthetic GIFs because I want your mundane Tuesday to have some cuteness. I text you because you asked me for the name of this song I couldn't remember until today. I text you because when I ask, 'how are you?' I'm actually waiting for the truth. Three paragraphs worth of truth. Or one sentence. The truth nonetheless. But if you still make it seem like it's one big task, then please, don't. I'll take my art to my happiness journal or what some people call their commonplace journal and I'll take my earnestness to the people who recognise it for what it is and have the capacity to reciprocate. Because when you respond after the number of days that you do, I'm no longer in that mood or mind frame in which I first texted you. I no longer want to talk about the things I sent you. But then you make me have to. That seems like a task to me too. And I'm trying to not make to-do lists with more than five items on it. With everything important I have to do, I'm afraid, you'll have to wait for a 100 days before I can get back to you. And your self important little self won't be able to handle that, would it?

Watching the fairy lights hanging above my bed from the pink pastel balloon that I’m playing with I think of your email. I would have replied, but I won’t. You spoke about real things, not abstract like we often do. I don’t have a problem with real things. Not in the least. But the problem comes here. When you talk about the things real to you while being ignorant to the things real to me, why must I step out of this whimsical world for you? Either you stay here with me or hold my hand and walk down the roads I must take in my life. I will happily, then, detour often to walk down the roads you must take. But because you won’t, I will leave your texts on read and your email unreplied to. For the time being anyway. And I won’t be asking for your forgiveness for this because it’s not something I feel guilty or unsettled about. And you can’t make me.

When I spend All Day trying to text someone and all evening and they don't give one shit that I tried to reach them.... It makes the effort I extended wasted. I am no longer wasting effort on you...