HE SAID:

Subject: for you, forever ago

Date: Sun, 30 Nov 2008

—,

Typing your name just now seems bizarre. I look at it, and in that moment nothing has changed. Your warm body still lay next to mine. Your brown eyes still stare into me as I lay on top of you, telling you “i love you”, as we make love. I have never loved anything, in this world, as I did you. I feel so misunderstood, lately. Every fibre of my being was spent loving you, in the only way i knew how. I did that because I loved you, and because I thought i was investing in your future – in our future. I felt incredibly lucky to watch you become the woman you are today. I watched you change, and develop your views, and become the person you wanted to be. I never once took you for granted. I knew you would change, and grow, and I encouraged that, and I was so proud of you – to be with you. On April 4, 2008 we attended the feminist porn awards. I remember leaning into you and saying that I think you should express yourself, and experience your fantasies. I knew that if i wasnt encouraging, that you would resent me. I never wanted to be the person to hold you down. I wanted to lift you up. I wanted you to grow from me, even if i was just a spectator in your life. I wasn’t so much bothered by the sex, as I was bothered by you saying “i’ve never felt like this about anyone”. It was those statements that destroyed me. You were so cold on the phone calls last week. It felt as though I was talking to a stranger. You knew that what you did was harsh. You even thought I might not be able to forgive you. I am able, though. You said you were happy, you said you were ecstatic. If that is the case, then you have no reason to complain about anything that lead up to your current scenario. Everything that has happened has lead up to your happiness – including my influence. I am the one who is torn up. I feel destroyed. I feel empty. I lost my best friend, my lover, and my puppy within one week, and I’m finding it incredibly difficult to rebound. I know that you asked me not to reach-out to you. I know that you said we both needed time apart. I want you to know that I took that seriously. I didn’t make an effort to bother you, through that time. I didn’t once message you, or phone you, or write you, without first being instigated. You asked me to leave you alone, so I did. I helped you move out, and you were clawing your way out of our home. You could barely contain yourself, to leave. That was painful. I don’t blame you, though. I would ask you, however, to imagine your soul mate. Imagine having a human being living at your home, who you love more than anything, waiting to leave you, forever. Imagine living with a person who is entirely ambivalent about any semblance of a relationship you have. Imagine living with your soul mate, who for the last 6 months resented you for merely living in the same house. For the first year you loved me, and I could feel it. Later on, you started contracting into yourself, and out of our relationship – I see that now. As you contracted, I expanded, to fill the void. For the last 6 months, of the 2.5 year relationship, you resented me…and thats how it was left. I can’t help feeling that leaving it like this is unjust. One time you said we should write a book about relationships. I thought that meant you were completely content, and happy with me. I would throw myself under a bus for you. I think about you every single day. I imagine your warmth against me.  I am not doing well, —. I’m finding it incredibly difficult to move-on. I want you to know that I do not, in any way hate you, even though I said that out of blind anger. I miss you,  terribly. I would probably give anything to hug you. To pull you into my body, and squeeze you. The last thing I said to you, before you messaged me those few times, was, “it was fun”. I truly appreciate every day, hour, minute, second I spent with you. I wish I had have spent more time just being in the moment. There are a few times that I keep in memory. There are a few times that I recall now, by closing my eyes tightly, putting myself back in that moment. One of them is February 5, 2006, 12:35AM, when I looked at you from the backseat of Lindsay’s car, and I mouthed “i love you”. I remember it as though it was yesterday. I remember every single good time as if it were yesterday. Everything seems as though it happened ten years ago, and yesterday all at the same time. As if it were a dream I had yesterday. I remember that night, and you looked at me so sceptically. I assured you that it would be the first thing you heard when you woke. And it was. And nearly every single day of our relationship thereafter I kissed your cheek, and whispered that in your ear. You told me that I tore you apart during your realization. I don’t remember much of this summer. Mostly I remember feeling paralyzed. Mostly I remember crying. Mostly I remember feeling unbearable loss. I’m sure I said things to make you feel bad, but my anger and jealously didn’t surface too often. Mostly I cried. I’m sure you’re angry with me for many reasons. I think I need to send this email to you so that I can move forward knowing that I have said my piece. I can not handle living with the knowledge that our last conversation was our end-note. I’m sure if I had asked anyone, they’d say i was stupid to send this to you. I don’t really care. I’m not a proud man, as you know. I wear my heart on my sleeve, for many reasons. I’m a 5 year old boy trapped in a 25 year old man’s body. It was you who connected the two. It was you who made me feel complete. It was you who taught me to be happy. I’m telling you this because I hope you can feel proud. I hope you can look past the arguments, and feel proud about our relationship. Your strength affected me in such a positive way. You’re a fantastic person, and don’t let anyone in this life tell you any different. i think the world of you, and always will. You cared about me for 2 years, but I’ll always care about you. Please contact me if you ever need me in your life, ever again.

I love you

SHE SAID:

—–,

I’m going to tell you what you heard in my voice the past two times we talked. I bore the brunt of your anger and sadness and hurt for many months. In wearing that for you I didn’t allow myself to experience my own.

You pain and sadness were always so near and present that I felt like I needed to hold that for you. The truth is, I did hold it, and it burned my palms. I had to put it down because it wasn’t mine to carry. It took me 1.5 years to come to this realization. I felt guilt because I told you I loved you. I did love you, in the only way I knew how. I felt guilty for making promises I could not keep, for drafting a life with you that was never mine. I felt that putting it out there would somehow make it true, if only just for a moment. I felt this would make you happy. In sheltering you from the truth, I took away your choice. In sheltering you from the truth, I took away my choice. I felt ashamed because my pain and sadness never seemed to make the cut. I wanted you to witness me, but you refused. I felt as though I didn’t deserve it. I do deserve it. I’m angry because your needs superceded mine. I’m angry because I let them. It may not seem that way, but in order for you to understand the verity of this statement you need to understand that more than a year ago I wrote you a letter. In it I told you I felt like I owed you the world. In it I told you I felt trapped. In it I was more honest that I have ever been – The final sentence was “I need out.” I never gave you this letter. I knew it would crush you. I knew you were in a precarious place. I wanted to balance you.

I’m ashamed because instead of removing myself, I grew violent and tried to remove you. I felt as though I was never really heard. You took my thoughts and feelings and reshaped them into something YOU could stand behind. They weren’t yours to mold. You redefined me as you saw me. Your narrative never fit and my disagreement became your contempt. You didn’t respect me enough to know myself better than you knew me. You desperately sought reassurance. When you saw that my love for you had receded, you took it upon yourself to excavate. You pushed me to admit that I loved you, and needed you. You pushed me to recognize your truth as mine. I told you I was drowning and instead of urging me to swim, you used me as a life raft. You called me selfish without recognizing your own greed.

I was afraid to tell you the truth. You carpeted yourself with denial as I tried to cushion your fall with lies. I felt crazy for feeling crazy. I held my tongue and I choked on it. When I finally spit it out: “I don’t want to be with you.”, you told me it was a lie. You said No. You invalidated me. Everything that followed was shrouded in nothingness. I was numb. My words carried less weight, yours carried more. I went through motions with you, feeling nothing. I lived with you, but I lived outside of me. You kept asking for tears. My eyes were dry. I could almost cry for them.

I’m enraged that you refused to accept my boundaries. You were looking for a cause. You were looking for roots, yet you refused to dig. You betrayed my trust. You broke into every space I had for myself. You read my text messages, my emails, you listened to my voice mail. You claimed innocence – you still do. You manipulated me. You fed me poison under the guise of concern. You used words like “dyke”, and “bitch” to describe someone I love. You should know that in using those words to describe her, you were also ascribing them to me. I’m infuriated that I chose to ignore this, excusing it as your pain. It’s homophobia. I’m fucking pissed off that you refused to see it that way. Know that when you chose to comment on my appearance and weight, you were choosing to perpetrate and perpetuate an assault used against women to control and limit our self worth. I’m angry that you touched me when I said no. I’m angry that you ignored my need in order to feed your own. I’m angry that I allowed you to do that. I’m angry that I gave you the power to use me as I had been used so many times before. I’m enraged that I felt like I didn’ t have a choice. I’m so fucking sad that I had to protect myself against you, by wrapping myself in a cheque as though it would shield me from the truth.

You said, you did all these things out of love. That is a lie. You did all those things out of fear.

I have carried all these things with me since I left. I do not ask you to carry them. I only ask that you hold them for a moment. You ask me, time and time again, to see things from your perspective, without ever once knowing what it is to stand in my shoes. I know you love me. I can’t imagine your pain. Truth is, you weren’t my soul mate. I always knew this. Truth is, you were my best friend. It was your friendship I didn’t want to let go of, but that was selfish of me, because our friendship for you, was wrapped up in your love for me. Whereas my love for you, was wrapped up in our friendship.

It’s about respect. It’s about distance between our lives. It’s about space. Yours and Mine.

I always urged you to go to counselling. I want you to know this had nothing to do with my agenda, and everything to do with yours. You struggle to redefine yourself and survive. You’re reaching out for change but it is almost impossible for anyone to know which branch to grab. Sometimes our past takes up way more space in our present and future than it’s entitled too. You are bright and full of emotion, and intelligence. You are also full of darkness, and hurt. The only person who can take care of that 5 year old boy is you. We can’t do everything alone, —–. In the end you have the answers, but perhaps someone out there has the slate on which you’ll write them, and will lend you the tools you’ll need to dig them up.

~ by throatstuck on January 18, 2009.