Dear Stranger,
I thought I knew you once before you disappeared. You came back on your hands and knees and I foolishly forgave you. I thought I knew you after that, until you made me stray. I woke up one day to find you'd gone as everything crashed down on me. I thought I knew you yet again when you returned to me, asking about my life and how things have gone since you left.
But I never truly knew you. Through all the reasons laid out before me to never text you back, send pictures, or video chat, I did it anyway. I longed for how you made me feel, like taking away the person from the romance. Because I didn't want you. I never wanted you. I only wanted those feelings to burn bright, and they did. After every time you faded away, whenever you returned, it was like going back to our honeymoon phase all over again.
I tried to defend you. "We've been through so much," I'd say, as if it was some kind of badge of honor. I wanted that angst-filled romance—the darkness and the fairytale. I thought fighting for you was romantic, but I realize now how one-sided the battle was. Because only I was fighting. You sat back and let me do the heavy lifting, and when I fell before you soaked in blood and tears and sweat, you shrugged and walked away. Over. And over.
So the last time we spoke, when you had been dumped, I let you cry on my shoulder in the hopes that we could rekindle that romance. Of course, I was already in a relationship, and tried to ignore those feelings, but in retrospect I see now what I was trying to achieve. It makes me feel so dirty and disgusting to know what I was subconsciously doing. I was doing what I'd been trained to do.
Like a dog following its master, I rolled over for you. Then you plunged a knife into my belly. When I begged for relief, you twisted the blade and laughed in my face, then came to my side with a first aid kit to heal the wounds you'd caused. I didn't see it then, but I see it now. I see the scars from these wounds that I tried to hide or play off as if they were all my fault. I refused to let you take the blame. I wanted to protect you, because I saw you as something you weren't.
While I thought you were a gorgeous oak tree, so sturdy and full of life—so willing to be my anchor—as the haze cleared I saw that you were the strangler fig around its trunk. You sucked the life out of that tree, leaving it as a wilted husk of what it used to be, then used its corpse to your advantage.
But the haze hadn't cleared for a long time. Even several months after I finally put my foot down and left you, I defended you from my friend. I told him that you "weren't all bad" and that you "didn't mean to hurt me". I was spitting lies to hide my pain, but I'm sure he saw right through me.
I wish I could've seen through you, too. I wish I hadn't ever given you another chance after your own heartbreak. I should've left you in the dust like you'd left me countless times. But I waited until my heart was pounded into the ground by you yet again.
You knew it would hurt me, getting into a new relationship. You didn't even tell me that you'd been dating her for a few months because you, in your own words, "didn't want to upset [me]". I remember that conversation so clearly because you might as well have torn my heart out of my chest and minced it into beef right before my eyes.
I tried not to let it bother me. I tried to have fun just being friends. But I always had this ill-gotten feeling toward you, of my foolishly placed love. I couldn't do it anymore. And I shouldn't have done it at all. I should've kicked you to the curb long before any of that, but I tortured myself.
When you said you were flying out to see her, after you'd teased doing the same to me so many years ago but never followed through, I felt so low, like I wasn't good enough for you. That I'd never been good enough for you. That you'd been using me for pleasure all those years and kept leading me on because you knew I was wrapped around your finger.
And I was. I had been for a long, long time. So long that I'd become fused to that finger and neither of us could detach me. No matter how many times you tried to flick me off like a disgusting leech, no matter how many times I tried to pry myself off like I was being held down by chains. I was stuck. Stuck on you, on those first feelings of love, on the drama and despair and longing and grief and every feeling in between.
I couldn't abandon those feelings, but you had no problems abandoning me. You had no qualms about leaving me in the dust, breaking me down, and letting me pick up the pieces. I'm sure you've moved on well, haven't you? I'm sure you're going about your life not thinking about me at all, content. You probably think all is fine and dandy and that I'm not still reeling over everything you put me through. Do you think that we left each other on a good note? Because I don't.
[Codicil]
Dear Stranger,
You tried to take everything from me. You tormented me and danced me around like a marionette, laughing and orchestrating everything. And you thought that I would linger on this. But I haven't thought about you in ages. I've been living my own life, enjoying my hobbies, all while in an actual loving relationship full of romance and compassion and understanding.
You could never give these things to me. I never should've expected them from you. And now I don't. The real kicker? I hope you're living a good life. Not because my poor bleeding heart couldn't stand to see you suffer, but because I've let go of the bitterness and despair. I don't think about you or your girlfriend. I don't think about the things we supposedly had. I don't think about the unreality I'd cultivated for myself, over and over every time you burned down my garden and I was forced to start again from the ashes.
I have my own life filled with support and kindness. I have my own relationship with someone who would do anything for me to see me happy, someone who doesn't flake out on me, someone who follows through with promises and speaks with honesty. Maybe you'll grow up and figure out how to be that kind of man, instead of just the sad, scared little boy you act like, clinging onto any iota of affection even if you don't reciprocate it. Until then, I've let you go.
You tried to take everything from me. But you failed.
