I cross your name out of my diary

Photo by me

I opened my diary again after a long time of leaving it in the middle. I saw your name, cited almost on every page. It felt so bitter as I had to read it back, of every word I intended to tell you, of everything I wanted to reveal, now left unspoken, lost by time.

Your name, once a comfort to me, has turned out to be the name of a villain, a traitor, a liar, and I never want to see it ever again.

So I crossed your name out of my diary. I tore up every single page that had your name on it. It still hurts, not because of what you did to me, but what I did to myself — the expectation I already built, the images of us I made up in my head, stories of ‘me and you’ that should have been, could have been ‘us’. All those stories are gone.

Funny how things changed so quickly. Christmas gifts exchanged. My books on your shelf, your books on mine. Routine late-night chats. My not-so-funny jokes to you, your favorite see-no-evil monkey emoticon to me. Our first hang out. Those sketches of your face I made, still hanging on my wall. Miscommunication. Time apart. Paused for a while. I tried to reach you, no response. Tried again, but still no response at all. So much to say, yet no idea when or where to start. A lot of things happened after that, but they meant nothing but shit to you in the end. I thought I was the only person you wanted to win your playing-hard-to-get game, until someone else came along, and took my place.

Everything about us was just an almost. And I hate to be the only one trying hard to make something out of it.

Honestly, some parts of me still wanted to wait for you to come back, but the other parts wanted me to realize you don’t deserve me, my purity and honesty; and this time, I let these parts win.

Reality finally dawned on me, it was over, nothing left behind. I stop making fools of myself. I stop being delusional. I gave up trying on you.

Instead, I start opening new pages, writing new stories, and picking up every broken part of me.

It’s hard. It takes time, but I’ve decided, I’m done with you.