i lie on my bed with nothing left to do but think of her—someone who existed in your life before me. it is strange how carefully i remember every detail you once gave me, every answer to a question i wish i had never asked. the ache coils in my stomach each time i am reminded that i was not the first person you loved. it frightens me, knowing what you are capable of when you give your heart so fully. i wonder if your eyes once held the same satisfaction, if your devotion once leaned this deeply toward someone else. i ask myself whether the tenderness you give me was ever hers first, whether the way you choose me now is only an echo of what you once chose for her. the thought makes me ill. it drags me under until i feel as though i might drown in it, until the pain rises so sharply i want to vomit it out of my body. this jealousy is a sickness i carry quietly. i want to love you the way you deserve—to trust every gesture, every word—but instead i doubt, and doubt becomes a wound i reopen again and again. i know this suffering is of my own making, that i am torturing myself with memories that are not mine to hold, yet still i return to them, as if pain is the only proof that i care this much.
