I know that I need to be okay without you.
I feel the throb of you, my phantom limb. Even after amputation, even after you left me for someone else, I can see shadows of you as I drift through the days. There you are at the kitchen sink, washing your hands. And there, asleep on the sofa, your mouth open slightly and your hands heavy across your chest. Your shadow is present in every part of my day. The stump of me without you hums dully until there is a crescendo of grief and loss: it is me alone walking the dog, you are absent. It is me alone in the bed at night, no sound of your heavy breath breaking through the traffic of city nights.
It seems reasonable then to continue the torture. The phantom limb needs memory to come to life. So I think back to first seeing you that summer of 2003, my eyes shying from your gaze. The quickening of my pulse when I saw you in the cafeteria or in lecture. The nights I was lonely and only wanted you to see me, getting drunk with my girlfriends instead. Kissing a stranger instead. Waking up more alone than ever. But you were with someone else, and I loved you. It was so painful to hear you speak of someone else. It was more painful to hear me speak to you and convince you to be kind to her and make up with her, when I really just wanted to be selfish and shout for you to notice what was in front of you the whole time.
And so this is familiar territory. We have come full circle. I am once more living in agony. I am eleven stories up and all I want is to run down to you and hold you. But I know you want something else, someone else. And all I want is to see your beautiful eyes light up with joy.
So I stay eleven stories up. With surgical precision I amputate myself from you. I see your wounds have cauterized and watch as you balance without me. I will tell you you are nothing. I will tell you to divorce yourself from me. And it will make it easier for you. It will help you run.
I love you. Three words. So trite and overused in everyday language. Overused by me on a regular basis. But I love you with the strength of one thousand waves, with the fire of a thousand suns. I know no other way to tell you this.
I love you so much that I know I have to let you go. Even if it kills me.
Hans Christian Andersen, did you feel the same loss? To write so beautifully and painfully of this in The Little Mermaid?
I am not alone. What I feel is something that has been felt by one million people before me. It is the cruelest thing, to love someone and not be loved in return. But like one million did before me, I will continue. I will place one foot in front of the other. At least I knew your kiss for some time, at least I had the chance to make you happy for a time. It was not quite unrequited. And for that I am grateful.
Is it possible to vanish? It seems like it would hurt less if I became a phantom and joined my phantom limb. I remember years ago, taking solace in other worlds through books. I moved so much and became so painfully shy and guarded, so protected that I didn't really exist as myself in the world. I loved the world of reading, being surrounded by something beautiful and feeling someone else's delight and sorrow and fear. It was so much better than feeling anything myself.