The Yeses and The Noes

Yes, I miss you too. No, it doesn't mean I want to see you again. But, yes, I still love you. I feel the truth of it like raindrops on my skin. Not those which fall as the fine drizzle you so like, mind you, but the kind which descends as a violent, destructive monsoon deluge.

No, I do not hate you. But, yes, a burning anger still does consume me from time to time, and, no, it is probably not going away completely anytime soon.

Yes, I am okay. I am trying to be. Every. Fucking. Day.

No, you are not a bad person. But, yes, you treated me badly. You wounded me in a place where I have been injured by others before you; dug your nails into old scars and scraped the skin until they bled again, until the pain was too scathing to hide under a pretense of nonchalance.

Yes, I cried over you. I did so again just moments ago, in the darkness of the movie house, as I sat between two couples who paid more attention to each other than to the film. No, I did not wish we were still together, but yes, I missed you and thought it would have been great if I saw the movie with you. Parts of it reminded me of you and of us, of our conversations that spanned thousands of Facebook messages and hours on the phone. The talk we had over soft tacos, beer, and cigarettes and the words we said in bed, merely in murmurs.

No, I don't want to want you anymore, but, yes, I still do, and I guess that's what hurts me most, because, no, I do not need you.

Yes, I still do want you. But no, because, fuck you, this is pointless.

And you. And I. And we, especially.

Without question, a yes: we are over, oui.

Allow me some bitterness, just this once

I'm not wishing you well, bastard. I'm going to be honest and admit that I sometimes hope you never meet anyone who'd try to understand you as much as I did. I won't think of the good things alone. Instead, I'll remind myself, every time I remember you, that you no longer deserve the thought, much less the tears. You deserve nothing from me. Not after you broke my heart the same way you did a year ago. Not after you blamed me for your feelings.

You can't do that, you understand? Your feelings for another person, regardless of what induced them, are your fucking responsibility. Understand? So don't fucking tell me it was my fault you fell in love with me. And don't fucking come back. I know I said you can. But don't. Understand?

Because I might let you in again. And you'd hammer my fucking heart again into a hundred ugly splinters.

Let's just pretend we never knew each other and our relationship was fiction. That's right. Let's pretend it never fucking happened outside the pages of a book. It's better that way anyway.

30.03.2012

This thing that we have now isn’t so bad, is it? In fact, it’s pretty close to what I’d consider ideal. We talk for hours through wires and satellites, through plastic buttons and glass screens, not minding that we both have to get up early the following day to do jobs we both feel no love for. We go through days like a pair of words meant to be printed side by side on a page, but written, instead, on the first and the last pages of a book.

We talk about days in places we call home, places we’d rather not be, because our place is in the woods, far from the pressures and the expectations of people we'd rather not please but need to, far from the lives we are leading but rather leave, because we have other things in mind, like a life where we roam the streets of Paris, or one where we have yakiniku together after watching the swans in the river.

But these are merely fabrications of my imagination, things that crept their way into our conversations. These are things that may be happening in a parallel universe where we appear as a portmanteau scribbled on a piece of paper, where you are a person, not a mere voice uttering sentences that, in the end, don’t mean anything.

Because what could this mean, this thing that we have now? What could this be, other than a game we play for hours, rolling dice and counting squares? Every game has its end, no matter how long it is played and I can only hope this ends in a draw. In some games, they say, you win or you die. In this game, I say, you win or you cry, which is a kind of dying, really.

But I maintain that this is close to ideal, because it has no strings (unless I choose to believe in the fabled red string), no walls, and best of all, no name, which makes it nothing and everything I want right now. So yes, it's not bad at all, whatever this thing is. Its impermanence and its inconsistence may just be what you and I need in this reality where youandi does not exist.

Dear future lover,

Love me. Love me without shame, without excuse, without restraint. Love me for me, not for what I seem or for what I could be.

Love me, and I will love you in return. And love you beyond clichés.

You know, I don’t want to be angry or bitter or (insert negatively loaded adjective here)

but sometimes, when memories come crashing toward me like a fucking tsunami, I can’t help cursing you and wishing you’re miserable.

I loved you. Actually, there’s a high chance I still do. I kept making excuses for you. I wanted my friends to actually like you. I even considered following you to Canada or Australia or (insert first world non-Asian country here) when all my life the only place I really dreamed of going to was Japan.

It makes me so angry to think I wasn’t worth the effort. That you got into this relationship without proper consideration, even when you had me wait for months, believing you were doing that so when our time comes, we wouldn’t be easily crushed. You made me believe you wanted us to last. You did.

I can’t even look at my inbox now. And as much as I want to delete your thread, I can’t, because, in all honesty, I’m still hoping we’d get another shot.

But on most days, I wonder if it’s even worth giving a second try.

On most days, I just want to fuck you over.