He wanted to smell like oceans

Instead he drowned himself in the fragrance of a liar, a cheat

A waste of the expensive cologne I gave him

I was his lifeboat

Tossing second chances in to his waters like a fisherman casting a net

Hoping to catch my happy ending

He was a con artist masquerading as a lover

That claimed he belonged to me

I was lost at sea for so long I became hollow, floating like driftwood, drifting away

then my head stopped listening to my heart

I finally learned to swim - my existence, finally plucked from the water

I learned how to fly away

down the coastline

I sit at my new favourite place

Waves crashing against the rockbed

Remembering how his troubled waters carried me asunder

Remembering that he is no good waste of space, pollution to the air I breathe

how I made the choice to fly away home

left it all behind to reclaim my happiness

Yet his absence still takes up space in my head

The firsts are what is sending my brain in to overdrive

He said those words first

He bought me something when he didn’t have to

He holds doors open

He asks me if I need things

He cares how my day is going

He wants me to text him when I get home

My hyper independence is showing

How the one before him was so emotionally bankrupt

How the realization that the one before him didn’t care about anyone but himself

How his lack of altruistic love resolved me to the lonely understanding that I could only ever depend on myself

It’s was much easier to not have to depend on anyone else

Is it finally my turn for reciprocity?

Am I seen as an equal, a worthy deity?

I was always the one who cared too much

Who wore her heart on her sleeve

Who would tell them that I loved them, first

Yet somehow I was always treated second at best

Albeit without the “I” in front, it’s perplexing that he has said those words, done those things, actually cared

That he is choosing me as someone to invest love in

But what’s the catch?

I’ve spent a majority of my life wishing to be chosen, known, thought of in small ways

It scares me because it reminds me of how fast I fell for the person who hurt me in ways my mind and body are still trying to heal itself from

Two years ago the “pick me” version of myself would’ve eaten it up

My tired synapses are on alert, what if there’s an ulterior motive?

Could this be another trauma bond?

I want to depend on you

I want you to know my love language, I want to know you

I want it to be simple, but my past hurt is making it complicated.

I keep telling myself “just let it happen, let yourself enjoy this.”

I thought I would’ve been more resilient

I’m not sure what stage of this healing journey I’m in

But lately at night just before I fall asleep my mind has an intrusive thought or two of you

You know, the kind that jolt your body and mind awake

But they’re memories of times where it was good

And for a second my heart falls back into a precious, fleeting moment where I loved you, and where I was happy

But I don’t want those memories of you

I’m not ready yet, to cherish those kinds of memories. Because part of me thinks that I’m forgetting all the things that happened in between

I’m not ready to forgive you, even though at first I thought I was.

Because most of those moments were in the middle of the fire storm you created in my life

At the time they were the only glimmers of hope I had left for us

Those moments of light make me feel disgusting in ways,

I still battle with the notion that somehow i let you do this to me, that staying with you for so long and trying so hard was my fault

I battle with confusion of trying to understand what role I truly played and the role you gaslit me in to believing I played

And in ways it was my fault

but that’s a piece of the puzzle I haven’t solved yet because those pieces are missing

Probably repressed, dancing circles somewhere in my head waiting for an avalanche of realization

I go back and forth with wanting to tell anyone who crosses your path how you will do the same to them eventually

But I know it’s not my place

Because I know that even though you have good intentions, people don’t want to hear the truth from someone else’s perspective, let alone a stranger.

I was that person once, but truth didn’t come from strangers. It came from people I love, and it came in the form of actions that never aligned with your words.

I don’t know why that truth wasn’t enough for me at the time. I may never know

I knew you in a past life

Memories of Sun kissed skin and mosquito bites

Young love always destined to end come August

I still held on to what once was, all those years ago

Your charm had me enchanted

I told my friends I finally met someone worthy

I took you to the pier so we could traverse the freshly Paved roads

Dream of what it would be like to wake up grown and look out at the water every morning

Walks down by the bay

Where we would let our minds escape

I took you there to watch the world go by, and to be closer to him.

It was one of his favourite places, my favourite places.

I often went there to talk to my father after he left this earth 1315 days ago

I wanted to share what I had left of him

I took you in like a stray, because I cared

But despite my best efforts

I watched everything I thought I had built crumble in slow motion

Happy visions kept slipping through my fingertips

I still ask myself why I tried to hold on so tightly

I kept holding on to someone who I didn’t know anymore - I kept telling myself I did

I still wonder why I chose you

Rose coloured glasses now framing my worldview

I held on to the beginnings of our second chance

I remember feeling butterflies, but it was a forewarning, not romance

You were everything I told myself I needed

But then your true colours started to overshadow the light I once saw in you

I was holding on to a version of you that no longer exists

This is new to me

Sitting in the cafe booth until the sun set

How you listened to my stories, heard the caution in my words

How I tried to diplomatically reveal my pain to you in tiny increments

Trying to show you who I am, who I was before him

In my hypervigilance I noticed a subtle softness

A gentle aura surrounding your demeanour

A gravitational pull inviting me in

We laughed, we joked, we learned about each other

You made it easy to let my guard down

Then you threw me a curve ball

It wasn’t a cinematic moment where the world paused and cathartic music played, but I was speechless

You validated me without knowing every single detail that’s been drowning my mind for months

The one thing that he always used to hold over my head.

We walked along the pier

Watched the people skate on the rink

Strolled around the dock

I learned that there was always six degrees of separation between us

We were always a moments notice shy of knowing one another

Yet there were both were

You walked me to my car

We hugged goodbye

The entire drive home felt like it was slow motion

Music playing in the background

I look in my rear view and notice I’ve got this big dumb grin on my face

I think I met someone

He’s nothing like you

I still find myself guarded

what if this is all a facade, a ploy

What if he’s just acting the part

What if he ends up being exactly like you

What if I unconsciously ignore red flags again

Desperate to just be chosen

What if I waste more time wishing for a happy ending

It’s a shame that I’ve become exactly what I didn’t want

But you played a large part in my suffering

Someone who can’t trust anymore

Alone I am not broken

Sunlit mist lingering in the air, my boots muddied.

How have I lived here for my entire life and never seen such beauty?

A sunny afternoon spent driving the backroads, I had rarely ever set foot outside of the city limits.

Laughing, talking, you were reminiscing about all of the time spent here exploring

Me making stupid jokes and almost falling one too many times.

You were showing kindness to complete strangers, a quality that I admit I ’m far too shy and reserved to portray.

Staring at the ceiling, my head on your chest. Laughing at comedians we found on the internet.

You made dinner. Most days I can barely round up enough energy to make something for myself.

As I was leaving it slipped out of my mouth like the water droplets perfectly forming those waterfalls. It wasn’t premeditated, it wasn’t planned.

I had spent the last 24 hours swirling those words in the back of my mind, unable to figure out what it was I was scared of or exactly how I felt about it.

And then I said it unconsciously. For a second it felt like how you accidentally say “you too” after the waitress says enjoy your meal. You closed my car door and I laughed.

I am present in my fear of the unknown

As I swipe left over and over

My mind working overtime

Already Trying to plan my escape before I’ve even swiped right on a destination

As I sift through profiles and pictures

It makes me feel dreadful

Because I don’t know how to do this anymore

My confidence decides to go on holiday

I’m left with questioning myself - How do I exert the fact that I’m not as boring as I think I am?

I’ve never mastered the art of small talk

I don’t know what to say, or how to convey me

I don’t know how to describe myself in paragraphs, how to sell myself to strangers

Hoping that it peaks interest of the like minded

It feels like I’m selling my soul to the devil

Just to gain some sort of odd and conceited validation that I don’t know if I even want, or am ready for

I know who I am in the broken fragments of my own imagination

Describing me is describing a fortress within the trees

I don’t lack the confidence that people seek

But My mind doesn’t let me be at ease

Because my inner child remembers, and so does my present self