to love you?

it wasn’t that i didn’t love you,

it was that i pushed myself into it

when i should have let it sit.

i felt it coming

and i jumped before checking

to see what was waiting below.

i didn’t realize i wasn’t

ready for impact

until i was already falling.

i didn’t know a lot about mental illness, before you.

all i knew about it came from shitty tumblr poems that said shitty things like

kiss my scars and call me beautiful

vodka reminds me of you

galaxies in my veins

so i sort of thought i could save you, or something fucked up like that. i thought that heartbreak felt the same as clinical depression. i thought it was just a pit in your stomach and not wanting to get out of bed. there was a fucked-up part of me that thought your sadness was a delicacy, sweet and soft. i thought of all the ways we could fix each other—how romantic would that be? what a stunning love story.

but it wasn’t like that. at all. i couldn’t just kiss you on your bad days and you would suddenly smile and all the dark clouds would part to reveal the sun. an “i love you” didn’t stop you from wanting to kill yourself. it went so much deeper than that, and i was so foolish, so immature. so unready for someone like you.

i always think about what could have happened if i had known more. if we had talked more. if you’d helped me understand.

but how could you have explained how it worked when you barely understood it yourself?

relationship status: it’s getting better.

we’re on our way. i look at you (me) in the mirror and i don’t hate what i see.

i don’t love you, but i like you. most of you at least.

i need you more than him, i know that. i know you deserve more love.

and yet.

and yet.

i just can’t give it to you.

i did not know

how to love myself

and love you

at the same time

i could either give it all

to you

or all

to me

if i split it down

the middle

we were both left

with too little

and i have never

been one

to disappoint

—the most selfless thing i did for you

this is something

honest:

i felt bad

at loving you.

this is something

terrible:

but i did nothing

to fix it.

this is something

pathetic:

and i still blamed

you when you left.

being bad

at loving someone

doesn’t make you a bad person

it just makes you

bad for them

—a thing i didn’t understand

word of advice #2:

stop expecting

every love story

to be a perfect fairy tale

sometimes love is messy

sometimes love is sad

and sometimes

so are people

stop running from people

who are harder to understand

because you don’t want

to take the time

to figure out