A Cynical Take on the Words: I Love You

I remember the night we exchanged the words, “I love you.”

It was cold, we were drunk, and it’s something I regret every single day.

You said, “When are we going to stop denying this thing between us.” And I still don’t have an answer.

Because every time I walk up and down these streets, I think of you. I think of making future plans about grad schools and spouses — “because we’re going to be in each other’s lives forever,” I think of making our public displays of affection known, holding hands at art fairs and restaurants and pretending that the people out there wouldn’t ruin us. Thinking that we were able to hold each other and ignore our individual well being. But joy is a luxury of the past.

That night, we were face to face; nose to nose;

crying.

Our need for independence destroys us. The fear of co-dependence burning our carefully hidden feelings to the ground.

Independence doesn’t mean denial.

Independence doesn’t mean distance.

It means being happy with ourselves, before being with each other.

The relief I felt that night was overwhelming. Denial was over, and the future could now begin.

To this day, we still laugh about timing. How the timing of those three words has the potential to ruin almost every meaningful friendship we had built for the past three years. How timing could ruin our friendship. Ruin the best and worst thing that has ever happened to us.

You are literally killing me. But being taken for granted by you is better than “living”.

You wanted me to push you. You wanted me to push you to be a leader. Push you into a fantasy world. Push you into becoming alive and never let go. Push you into becoming responsible. Into the significant and insignificant. Into the necessary and the new.

I instead pushed you into anxiety and loneliness. I pushed you into pressure. Pushed you into the life of whiskey. I pushed you into falling for others. Of cynical hate of the words I love you.
For that, I am sorry.

That night, you told me that you couldn’t live without me. But now you’re taking back those words that implied forever.

I remember another time. Slow dancing to cheesy-but-true music and living in blissful ignorance. Drunken dancing that foreshadowed the love that we both expressed two years later. That time, and many others, have evaporated into the thick, dark air of reality. Because the words “And I Will Always Love You” imply a death sentence, not happiness.

I am tired of feeling used, seeing you put on a face of denial when you walk out of my door.
I’m not that special trophy that you show off during special occasions and put back on the shelf.
I should be that book that you read over and over again because you’re so fucking fascinated by it.

I am tangled in this wicked game of yours. And right now, I am walking away.