one time before, I was in a bathroom with a boy after a party in the apartment upstairs from his own. we had a spark of mutual interest. he had an open floor plan and two roommates who were asleep. we made out in the bathroom for a bit. it was hot. he was thrown back on the toilet, held closely to me as I stood over him and we stared at each other breathing heavily and about two inches from one another.
When I decided that the spark had extinguished for the night, or that I didn't want to be in the bathroom anymore, or any other reason to explain that I wanted to leave, he asked me to stay. I told him no, he told me no, he begged me to not leave. he begged me to stay in the bathroom. I told him to let me leave. he didn't want to let me leave. I didn't like that. that was a stark moment for me, when I looked down at him blocking the door from me opening it. Everything around that moment is pretty fuzzy regarding dialogue, feelings, looks. But I remember that he begged me to stay. We kind of dated for 3 or 4 months after that. there's more to this, but i want to focus. We broke up. He liked me too much.
a few days ago, I broke up with a man that I've been seeing for a little bit now. kind of six months, officially one. we had a long and arduous conversation where I couldn't spit out that I had to break up with him. it was around sixteen hours, with four or five of those us being unconscious and cuddling through the night together for the last time. I don't think either of us really knew that when we were falling asleep. As the conversation went longer I could feel my patience whittling away, my stick getting sharper, piercing deeper through him. It didn't feel good for either of us. I couldn't stop the words from coming out of my mouth. Around hour ten, I told him he needed to leave because we were just going to keep going around in circles.
I said he needed to leave because I meant it. He didn't leave. I could excuse it the first time because he was so sweet to me. Ith set the bar for how I want to be treated when I open up to somebody. We were in a really painful moment of me wedging my heart away from a growing cage of sinew that connected us. But I knew I was going to keep getting more mean, I felt like I was being stretched, I was physically uncomfortable, I couldn't focus. I knew he needed to go. I asked him four more times to go. Until the last one, where the goodbye at the door took fifteen more minutes, until I was already late for my plans to leave at seven PM, until I had already denied him staying for longer to hang out and cuddle and watch a movie we've been trying to watch for months. It wasn't until I stood up and walked him out that he went.
I am drawing parallels between these two scenarios. I know both of them, despite being at opposite ends of our meetings, didn't want to leave the moment that we were in. If we could both stay in the same room forever, things would never end. they wouldn't be real. this is why they have witnesses for courthouse weddings, if someone outside of the two involved in these cosmic events never bear witness, did it even happen? I don't blame him for trying to preserve the moment. It was a surprise that was cut from him and left him hanging out to dry. I understand why you need to let go of the people that you love. I hope that his lasting impression of me is one of love. And that he will look back in a few months and see that I'm trying to spare him from me, and from unfair, unearned, unrequited love.
I would like for him to thrive. I worry that I will be a black, ugly mark of embarrassment and anger on his timeline. He is a wonderful, light grey, beautiful streak on mine.