A Colossal Screw You
Photograph by Ruby Szczur
I’m sitting here while my soul is being removed from my body, hovering above me like a guardian angel. A fairy godmother. I have shrivelled from the marvelous and whole being I was, to a blank mind. A blank canvas. A shell of a person. A cracked skateboard. A dropped ice cream cone. Suddenly my voice is gone. The toxicity that seeps onto your tongue from your cruel and wicked heart when you opened your mouth wraps around my neck as if to strangle me. My spirits are crushed, my hope flies away like a bird with the cage door left open. I choke and gasp for air. I slit my wrists and reminisce. A dark and twisted fate for a dark and twisted soul. But that’s not the answer.
A seedling planted in the earth, gently nestled between loving hands and brushed with delicate sun rays and soft water remarks, grows into a full orange blossom tree. New life. Singing birds and sun kissed skin is my future. Future. A far away concept, but it’s there. It’s always going to be there if I allow it. A fresh roll of film amidst a Canon AE-1. Bodies on bodies shouting the words to The 1975 “Give Yourself a Try.” There are things to see and experience and I deserve to know them all. The sincerest forms of the treasures the world can offer me. Imagine the power they would hold if I took the easy way out. Thinking these thoughts and sharing these thoughts is scary. The truth is scary. Hurting and harm is real. Fantasies are real. So is love. And joy. And feverish ecstasy. And you deserve to experience it all.
I reached out, I lent a hand, I called when you needed and answered when you wanted, I offered my shoulder, I sold my soul. Debatable on whether it was worth it or not, but I tried. I made an honest effort, and I would have loved it if you granted me the same respect. I know it’s difficult, but I have to move on too. I have to stifle the tears and stop checking my phone. I have to relinquish my grudges but all the while unblind myself from your flaws. The negativity that floats above your head like a halo of disappointment. The ladder of self deprecation that is pushed under your feet when you need a convenient crutch to lean on when you’re scared to see the truth. To see your ill-willed attempts at pleasing me. I’m not difficult to please. Love, honesty, communication, smiles, laughter is all I ask. Your cowardice brands my heart like a concert “X” that stays on for weeks and weeks. I quit. I quit these truths I have discovered and I give them to you and I hand them over and I am done feeling this way and I am done not being okay and I am done thinking these thoughts and I am done making efforts. I have reached the last “I give.” The only giving I am now doing, is up. Not on my life or my future, but on ours together. I give up. I give up this game you invented. You don’t win, but I am sick of playing to lose. I hope you are better off. I hope you forgive me for loving you. I hope you end up okay, but I give up missing you.
My joy gets stuffed back inside me like a voice box at the Build-A-Bear factory. The voice box message inside? Don’t do it. It is not worth it and it will hurt you and those you care so deeply about. His screw ups are not mine. His faults are not mine. His problems are not mine. They are not yours either. Do not get stuck on the toxicity wrapped in manipulation disguised as “love.” That is a warped sense of reality and it must not be mistaken for benevolence. I feel it. The joy. The genuine happiness. I taste the optimism and I cherish the future. I cherish the future. I say it and I mean it, I cherish the future. Your choking tight grasp on me ends now. It ends now. I say it and I mean it, it ends now. You colossally screwed me over but I now drop the grudge. I leave. It. Here. Game over. I have won. You have lossed. Screw you.