goodboicerberus

[goodboicerberus]

20 June 2023

Two weeks later and my skin has started peeling.

The side I scorched in the sun, knowing I would burn but ignoring the thought. My opposite-of-a-cold shoulder. The part that was red hot, then joyful golden, and now ashy decay.

I've had the beginnings of a poem stuck in my head for a while now, slipping under the cracks of doors and adeptly sliding past drawn curtains. The sunshine of you, as blinding flashes rather than a soft glow. "I loved you like a sunset," I keep whispering.

I loved you like a sunset

Stumbled upon you and stood enraptured

For short minutes as you blazed across my sky,

Hues of orange and pink warming my cheeks

Only a little before the evening breeze interrupted.

In an intimacy with the horizon,

I knew you all at once and not at all.

You dipped slowly into the waters stretched below

And darkness came with a sharp whip of wind.

I do not know the sun for having seen it

From my one little perch on this one summer's eve.

I cannot fathom how it scorches deserts dry

Or the magic it lends to a budding leaf.

My arms cannot wrap around its molten mass

Simply for having basked in its curve-bent rays.

I knew only this permutation of possibilities

But I loved it well.

[goodboicerberus]

28 April 2020

Note: any time I say 'relationship', I am referring to the bond between us as people, not a bf/gf status.

You keep saying the future is uncertain, and that is true, but it is a necessary part of being human to make plans in the face of uncertainty. More importantly, I deserve to know what to expect out of our relationship in the immediate future. That is a reasonable expectation for even friends to ask of each other. I am trying to plan my future, including deciding--if and only if there is no hope of us being happy together, at all--whether to move with you.

I have gathered: you want to be single; to live the bachelor life. You feel uncomfortable having sex with people while also having an emotional relationship with me. In practical terms, that means you feel uncomfortable living with me. In emotional terms, it means that you believe that you will not feel guilty/uncomfortable having sex with others if we simply remove all sexual and emotional restrictions from our relationship--to remove "the thought of being held back."

I would strongly prefer living with you, both for financial prudence and because I enjoy it. You wanting to live separately scares me bc it means the relationship is moving in a direction *opposite* of what I wanted. You having somewhere to bring people back to does not bother me, but I don't believe your apartment will be just that. I think you will expect me to go back to coming whenever you say yes to my daily begging, and for me to have the burden of travel expense and being away from my home without my things. I did not enjoy those aspects of our relationship before, but they were necessary at the time.

I want emotional exclusivity with you. I do not care what sexual situation that is in (us having our own other sex partners, us only bringing a third in, etc). I want to be your partner, not your friend with benefits. I want us to be together, as a romantic couple, publically--to friends, family, Facebook. I hate hiding, and lying.

I don't wanna be a dirty mistress, I want to be in a relationship.

To me, being in a relationship means two people agree to be accountable to each other; in other words, you give each other permission to be upset with and discuss your words and actions. You can't be upset about everything--that is the point of rules, to set parameters of what your expectations are; of what you agree to be accountable for, precisely. I have come to understand that you have no desire to subject yourself to that definition.

You are not agreeing to emotional monogamy; not "imposing emotional/romantic restrictions if you're seeking something that excites you and makes you happy..." That is a very nice, well-worded, virtuous-sounding way of saying that you want the opportunity to pursue anything that pleases you, without any responsibility for how I feel about it. There are two ways possible motivations for that: either you want the ability to try to find something better than me, or you want to "have your cake and eat it too"--a metaphor I abhor bc it makes no sense when broken down, but which here means getting all of my sex, affection, time, thoughts (generally, all the benefits of being in a relationship with me) without any of the accountability to the set paramaters (rules) or to the outside world (public relationship).

The core of the conflict in what we want is that I am viewing this as a sexually open relationship, where I have one partner/boyfriend and occasional outside sex partners, while you view it as being single with one Real Demanding Ho. I do not want to continue being in this conflict. You talked about removing all rules as "the best way to ensure the hurt is minimal," but surely you realize this is actually just the best way for *you* to not have to *feel guilty* about hurting me. Because I have been clear, vocal, about what hurts me: whenever you do things that make me feel like you don't give a fuck about me/my feelings.

Last time we really fought, you said you would agree to some rules, but we didn't hammer them down. I have come to realize that you will never agree to the rules that I need. I think, perhaps, this is ultimately a situation where one person loves someone who simply does not (and cannot, ever) love them back. That's nobody's fault, but it's a huge bummer. It means you will always have a piece of me, and I will always have a hole (which honestly should just be carved on my grave).

I need you to think about what you want. And maybe you've done that enough--maybe what I have written is somehow 100% accurate despite my atrocious emotional/social intelligence--and maybe you agree, that we are at an impass. That you will not provide me with the things I am asking for. That hurts, but I would rather know that now than waste months hoping for something that will never be. I love you, and I want to be friends with you as much as I can regardless of the outcome of our sexual/romantic exploits, but I don't know how painful that will be. Please don't respond to this until you are ready. Take time, and joke and play and laugh with me in the meantime, bc I love those things. I don't want this to be over. My heart just hurts and I need to tell you what is in my head. It's an annoying habit of mine. But...once you do reply, don't mince words. I am just as tired of having this conversation as you are.

[goodboicerberus]

24 March 2020

I'll let a lot slip, lately. I let my mental health changes start sliding backward. I said some things to you that I wish I hadn't.

It's not because those things aren't true, because they are. It's not because you can't handle the harsh wording, because you can. It's because I know what I want, and those words won't get me there.

I want a life with you. You don't want one with me, not right now. I don't know if you ever will. That hurts so deep it feels like physical injury.

Being alive, it hurts. Feeling all these feelings, hurts. The chasm that would open up in me if you were gone, it would hurt so much more.

I would give so much to hear from you now. You usually forgive me. You usually remember the person I am, when I am not Anxiety Brain or harpy or whatever version of me pours acid words across my own skin. I am terrified of the day you do not.

Maybe the fractions are what matters now. You said I am with you, at least more than anyone else is. With you I am not perfect, but I am better. That little bit, that fraction, matters.

I hope you feel the same. Talking to thin air has gotten real old. I'm going to need new tactics, now, to keep myself sane.

I fall asleep with my arm reached out, hoping you will brush my fingertips with yours, in a dream or in spirit, or something. I wait impatiently for that touch, but I wait.

[goodboicerberus]

Here's a thought:

What if the pleasure principle (the desire for pleasure and avoidance of pain) functions as a neurosis?

"We imagine we are looking for the truth, or being realistic, when in fact we are holding onto ideas that bring release from tension..." (The Laws of Human Nature, Greene)

Is this not also true of the insecure? The self-defeating, self-hating, pessimistic parts of ourselves? When your self-hatred is so deeply ingrained that you believe it with all of your heart (read: feel strong emotions in confirmation of that hatred), **it is soothing to believe the worst for ourselves**. In other words, we, the self-haters, examine a situation concerning ourselves and make negative conclusions because it confirms our existing bias against ourselves. The interpretation of reality that casts us in the worst light appears "realistic" because it is not at odds with our existing belief that *we* are the worst. To be optimistic about oneself in a situation, while generally believing that you are a failure, creates tension. It is far easier to dismiss that optimism and re-trace established neural pathways than to re-assess our understanding of ourselves every time we want to anticipate an outcome.

The moral? Just because it is hard to believe that things will be okay, doesn't mean that is the "realistic" perspective. Ask yourself, what would someone who loves me, or even someone impartial, say about the situation? Your neurotic need to confirm your bias against yourself can be resolved...but only if you challenge it.

[goodboicerberus]

How am I supposed to love you, knowing this will end?

How am I supposed to live, knowing I will die?

[goodboicerberus]

February 9, 2020

---

There's this clamoring inside my chest tonight

And I'm not sure for what, but some part of me is reaching

I just want to feel your warm hand take mine and hold me close, and breathe soft and steady, wrap me up until I feel safe.

Funny thing is, that feeling in your arms is a sort of clamour too, is fluttering hummingbird wings tickling my throat, where some sort of golden laugh waits to burst out, and I'm afraid to let it because I don't know if I will shout or burst into tears. It's just emotion, I guess. Not a specific one, just a tidal wave of overwhelmed, of feel-this-now, of This Is Alive.

I miss you.

[goodboicerberus]

Jan 22nd, 2020. Worried.

I worry about the same thing. I haven't heard from you, so there's nothing fresh; my brain just trods the same paths and finds nothing new.

I don't want anyone else. I miss the way you kiss me, the way you look when your eyes close and your lips curl, satisfied, and you pull me in closer. I miss lying in bed with you and laughing too loud and sending you all of my dumb thoughts throughout the day. Time feels like it is moving slower, like molasses.

I don't want anyone else. I am so, so worried that you will hear I have been alone and tell me that's silly, or ask me why I did that--basically, that you will be so far from the same page as me that my actions and feelings will be laughable and alien, seem desperate and hopelessly misguided.

Some days I think I know exactly how you feel about me, and that I have explanations for all of your actions...that I understand you. And some days I worry that I've made all of that up, and you feel only mild affection towards me, and that you couldn't care less if I see anyone else or fall in love with someone or if I will be here when you get back. There's no way to ask you those questions, even if you were standing right in front of me, because you would give the same answer either way: the one that reveals nothing, that gives me my freedom without a guilt-trip, that doesn't presuppose ownership or control or to know my desires. I love you all the more for that answer, for not trying to take my freedom, but that answer also makes my heart ache.

I want you to tell me what you want, tell me how you feel, disregarding the practical for a moment. Stop thinking about what other people would say, about the logistics, about every past relationship you've had, and just tell me how You feel about Me. Am I just pretty cool, a friend you trust deeply and enjoy messing around with? Or am I also someone you could hold every night, who you could build a future with, who you might finally allow to love you?

I know that's am impossible hypothetical, and that all of those things are so knotted together you can't consider your feelings without also factoring in the situation. I wish you could. Situations change, priorities chI want you to tell me what you want, tell me how you feel, disregarding the practical for a moment. Stop thinking about what other people would say, about the logistics, about every past relationship you've had, and just tell me how You feel about Me. Am I just pretty cool, a friend you trust deeply and enjoy messing around with? Or am I also someone you could hold every night, who you could build a future with, who you might finally allow to love you? ange, and the way people react to things in life can surprise us.

No matter how hard it is to talk about your feelings... please, PLEASE don't lke to me, or hide anything. I would so much rather know you are fucking someone daily or falling for someone new than to have you pretend everything is fine when it isn't. Please just be brave enough to be honest. Do it for me, or do it for you. But please do it.

[goodboicerberus]

January 19, 2020 (evening). Conflicted.

I’m intimidated by the thought of only being with one person for the rest of my life…or even for the next 20 years. On the surface, I look like I’m not afraid of commitment, but that’s only because I always have a backup plan. It’s part of who I am.

Without a qualifier: I understand why getting into a relationship at 22 is mildly terrifying. What if you waste the “best years of your life”? What if you could have had a hundred gorgeous sex partners instead of the handful that you dated? What if you settled too soon, before you knew what you wanted and needed?

I see loopholes in each of these questions, but I also see their validity. The best argument I can make: No matter what age you are, you shouldn’t be with a partner that makes you feel like you are missing out on life, or who can’t change and develop as you (and subsequently your needs) change and develop over time. No partner should ever feel like the antithesis of freedom.

Then again…if one is afraid of commiting because commiting might mean missing out, one should also fear *not* committing. How lame would it be to refuse to commit to anything? To watch ten minutes, or even the first hour, of a film, but not see it through to its end? To go swimming but never fully submerge and float off the ground? To kiss someone but never hold them? To fall in love with someone but keep fighting that fall, instead of letting go and seeing where it takes you?

[goodboicerberus]

January 19, 2020 (morning). Anxious.

I'm afraid of us being on different pages.

I don't want anyone else, right now. Somehow, being sexual with other people makes the ache of missing you worse, not better.

I'm afraid of deciding not to be sexual and then finding out that you have been, though. Somehow, in my twisted up logic, I won't be jealous of your partners if I had my own (even though we have proof that isn't true). But the bigger fear is my fear of being the fool: I will look stupid and naive, will feel humiliated and idiotic, if I choose not to be with anyone while you pick new partners. When other people choose to be alone, it looks dignified; they're focusing on themselves, they have higher standards, they're mature. When I choose to be alone, it's tied up in my feelings for you, and those feelings poison the water, so to speak. Any dignified reasons I have for being alone are negated by the fact that one of my reasons is you.

[goodboicerberus]

January 17, 2020. Optimistic.

The lonliness hasn't set in yet, even though you've set sail. It's partly because I'm in denial, convinced you will return sooner or more frequently than expected. The other part is sheer willpower. I'm gritting my teeth and already braced: if I let a little sadness through, I'm afraid the rest would crash over me. So some part of me has decided not to be sad.

That part of me seems to have decided quite a few things without notifying me, actually. For instance, I find myself in bed tonight realizing that I want to honor your side of the bed, rather than taking it over. That one isn't a metaphor, but it might as well be, because I also recoiled at an invitation into someone else's bed today. I don't even know what to tell him, when I was previously willing. It's not so much the idea of being faithful...it's more the fact that I'm tired of being disappointed that other people aren't you.

Your side of the bed is waiting for you. I am, too. I won't make promises to you, because I know you wouldn't want me to, but I will promise myself: only reach for things that are better than what I already have. No more taking what I can get, no more letting people be pushy, no more subpar sex for the sake of not being monogamous.

In the meantime, I'll be busy. I have things to take care of, like my career and finances and documents--the business of being me. I've got a thousand little projects: languages, musical instruments, artwork, continuing education. I've got my major projects, like my health, that I am focusing most of my energy on. I think, for once, I might not notice (or at least focus on) the fact that I am alone at home.

I recognize I'm in an optimistic mood. I told you...I just have faith that things are gonna be okay. Somehow, some way, I'm not going to lose you. I think you meant those soft, deep kisses. I think you meant it when you said you would miss me. Remember, more than anything else, the thing that's been working for us this whole time: don't decide anything yet...just wait and see.

[goodboicerberus]

What I am Worth to You

December 25, 2019. 

For once I want to write in simple terms.

You argue that there is a time in life when a person should be able to make decisions entirely for themselves. They have the freedom to be themselves, without fear of consequences. They should not have to compromise, whether on the level of dreams or minor inconveniences, because they are living for themselves. The merits of the argument are clear: this is a time for a person to figure out who they are and what they want, and then to chase their dreams with nothing holding them back. It’s an opportunity to focus on working on themselves rather than working on a relationship. 

I don’t disagree that there is a time for focusing on ourselves. I simply disagree that such a time can or should be lived out in a vacuum. We all have friends and family and coworkers. To be human and live your life means being surrounded by people, and people have emotions. 

I am already here. I already care. I already feel joy and pain and anger with you, according to the decisions you make. You don’t get to decide how I feel about the things you do, you only get to decide whether you do them. Whether doing them is worth whatever consequences it has. Refusing to give me a title? To call me your girlfriend, to be exclusive with me, even to have feelings for me? None of that means that the consequences of your actions go away. 

I am in your life, so your actions affect me. I am always very clear about what kinds of feelings I will have about your actions...and really, do I have such suffocating rules? Fuck other people, but maybe not on Christmas eve when you said you would be with me? Kiss and fondle and put your dick in whoever you want, just not during specifically the two minutes on either side of 12:00 on one day of the year? I am sensitive and dramatic and often react emotionally before I have a chance to rein things in, but how hard is it not to stab so deep? 

What conclusion can I come to, but that my worth is just a grain in your sandbox? You say I’m important to you, but so many more things are more important. Your long-distance friendship is more important than my dignity. Your option to do some small, specifically unimportant thing is more important than the hours I will spend thinking about it or trying to ignore an ache in my chest. Your convenience is more important than my feelings. 

Again, and again and again, your convenience is more important than my feelings. And ultimately, making that choice over and over does have consequences, but those consequences are still not more important than your convenience:

You would, without hesitation, rather I stop being a part of your life than for you to ever be inconvenienced. 

Either that, or you are openly manipulating me because you believe I will never have enough self-worth to walk away. Neither option values me as a human being, let alone as someone important to you.

You want to focus on you, but not on you as a friend, or a lover, or a partner. You claim to want to improve yourself, but you scoff at every opportunity to do so, to make a different decision than you did in the past. It’s like you think there’s going to be a day when everything is new, and you will suddenly be able to start fresh, and that you think that I am distinctly part of everything old, and thus subject to the old treatment. You want to treat your friends better? Treat me better. You want to treat your romantic partner with all the good they deserve? Treat me like that. 

I’ve been willing to work with you. I care about you enough, whether as a friend or more, to forgive you and seek to understand the deeper reasons behind your actions—even when they hurt me the most. I’ve been willing to wait, to let you grow and change like you wanted, before trying to pin you down in a relationship. I’ve tried to design a relationship we could be in that wouldn’t have the same limitations and expectations and things you hated about all your other relationships. I’ve been willing to put what I want aside, so that you can get what you need, and so that I can at least have a little piece of what I want while I wait. 

But now the plot has changed. Now you are telling me that my option is to stay behind and be demoted to a Facebook-friend level of familiarity and communication, or to spend every day of my life in the near future wondering when you are going to suddenly say, “So I met this girl last month and we started hooking up and I don’t think you and I should see each other anymore.” I can choose to break my own heart for sure, right now, or I can choose to have, at least in relation to you, the independent will of a literal object, because all I can do is wait around for you to remember I exist, want to play with me, and decide I’m not too much effort to bother finding. 

Even if you didn’t intend it, you are giving me an ultimatum. Choose my personal hell, or give up more of my dignity, more of my will, more of my humanity. How can you blame me for wanting to opt out of such a decision, for wanting an endless sleep instead? It’s not the right answer, but is it really so hard to see how I got to that answer at all? 

You are never going to love me. You don’t even think I’m worth trying to love. What would be so bad about trying? What would be so bad about giving me a chance? Am I really so truly in the way of the things you want? Am I too demanding, to want just bits and pieces of what you’ve freely given to others, others who knew fewer of your faults than I do and didn’t love you in spite of them the way I have? 

But I know the answers to those questions. I’ve had someone love me when I didn’t love them. There is no argument in the world that will change your heart.

I want to rouse you, to stir you to action, make you realize you do care and that the only reason you won’t love me is because you won’t let yourself, because you loving me means letting me love you, and you can’t let me love the real you. You don’t believe that’s possible, for someone to see all your faults and not leave. That’s why you leave everyone first, why you push them away however you can, cheating being the most effective at pushing people away quickly without you having to actually say anything. Without you having to admit to yourself that you push people away on purpose. I want to scream and argue and smack my fists into your chest and do everything else people do in the movies when they argue to show that they care, and then maybe you would see sense, or at least be too tired to push me away anymore. 

Please do that. Please be too tired to push me away. Let me win, because one of us has to. In my version, we both take home the prize. In your version, one of us goes down ... and I’m scared I’d never get up. 

[goodboicerberus]

December

My summer peach is gone. He’s been gone for a long time but I’d been hoping that maybe some particularly sunny winter day might revive him, might make him reappear. But what’s done is done, no matter if you are able to accept it or not. 

I will be alone, for real. It doesn’t matter how many partners I have, or whether I have a friend here, or friends back home. I will be alone because he felt like a part of me, or rather *we* felt like something new, some composite that is now going to be missing one of its two functional pieces. And instead of feeling like I am returning to being my own functioning self, I feel like a hollowed out machine, like a useless *thing*, like the leftovers or the out-of-date tech left down in the basement. And that’s my fault for seeing us that way, not his fault for leaving. I broke the contract, refused to follow my own rules, stuck my hand in a fire and watched it burn. It felt good, that warmth finally making its way through skin that I thought could never feel again, felt too good to be concerned with the charring, felt worth the pain that my brain knew was on the other side but my heart could not comprehend.  

I will be alone in this house, this apartment that was my sanctuary when my home stopped feeling like home. This place where we made love and held hands and dreamed out things that couldn’t be, this place where time used to stop, where the world couldn’t make its way in. But now I see the dust gathered under the doorway and the blinding harsh sunlight beating against the window shades and I realize I will have to occupy this ruin alone, like a hermit, like the last survivor who returns and finds everyone else gone. It will never feel full without him. I have to disentangle our clothes and our dishes and our bottles of soap, have to rip out the most beautiful vine that had curled its tendrils into my life as if it was a weed. 

I thought I had time. What’s worse than realizing there are literally only days left to see his face is realizing that those days won’t matter, because all the parts I need have ended. We’ll never make love again, we probably won’t even have sex. We’ll never lie sweaty and wrapped together, breathing in each other’s breath, noses rested against each other, because that time is long in the past. died and I’ve been getting the notices, but I’ve been reading them upside down, or in the wrong language, or something because I just never understood that they were informing me of a death. I was, I am? deeply entrenched in denial. I cannot even cling to my scraps, cannot attempt to fill my chest with love of our friendship, because that, too, is at its end. Every phone call is an act of charity, is a kindness to an addict struggling to quit a drug that ran out a while ago. When he moves, this will be over. I will be the one who gets one last video call, who pines to step through the screen and know what is out of frame, who won’t know there’s a new girl sitting on the couch listening to my tender words, who won’t know that the smile on his face has pity mixed up in it, who will say “talk to you later” to someone who will never call again. 

I guess it’s good there aren’t any pictures. To press delete, you have to acknowledge that something is there. He never was interested in sorting through such things. Who cares what’s in your downloads folder when you know you’re going to indiscriminately wipe your hard drive at the end of the year? 

I don’t want someone new. I don’t know if I ever want anyone again. It sounds dramatic but it feels very true, right now. Someone accomplished, handsome, intelligent wants me, wants to keep me all to themselves and plan years into the future with me , and all that does is scare the shit out of me. I don’t want those things, not with him. I can’t see those things with anyone else any more. I had never, *never* imagined children with anyone else, never thought that I would see that kind of future, never wanted to so thoroughly give myself to someone. I have rehearsed a pure fantasy so many times that I cannot imagine an alternate reality, and do not want it. I keep trying to hold back the tide of suicidal thought but it’s crashing against my walls and the light for my beacon has gone out. I don’t know who to call, who to talk to, because I just want to talk to my best friend. I just want to be held by the person I love. I want to hear words that he will never speak; I want him to love me, to beg me to go with him, to keep me from signing my life away because he wants to spend his with me. I want him to move on from that perfect blonde angel and throw away all the pictures, all the baubles left of her. I want to be warm in his arms and feel my pain and stress drain out of my body, want his heartbeat to be as soothing as words, want not to cling to him from knowing he is just about to slip away. I want him to take me home for Christmas, to share his family with me because he knows I can’t see my own, want him to plan to keep me around long enough for such a trip not to be a waste of time.

.

[goodboicerberus]

The non-decisions

The circumstances you started under don't determine your outcome.

Two strangers starting a strictly casual Tinder hookup at brunch can find themselves at a marriage commissioner's office on the other side of the continent.

You can grow up in the same small town as someone, meet them at college orientation hundreds of miles away from home, and end up being soulmates.

A drunken rando shouting and giggling in your dorm room at 2am can charm the socks off your Croatian family and make you into the man you wanted to be.

The affair you started to escape a bad marriage can develop into 25 years of marriage and serve as an example for all the children in your extended family.

It doesn't matter that you chose Italy for study abroad because it sounded like a vacation. You might still become an Italian literature professor and marry a man you meet at a Roman water fountain.

A cheater and fuckboi can actually be a genuine and deeply intelligent person, and end up being your best friend.

You can interview for a part time night shift at the ER and find yourself running the Orthopedic department from the comfort of your own office the following week.

The bad shit happens too, but it's winter and I'm tired and it's been raining all week and the clouds above are ominous enough. Today I just want to remember that, sometimes, not following the plan ends up being the best non-decision you ever make.

[goodboicerberus]

Slowly Wilting into Winter

December 10, 2019.

We have moved into a different stage.

It began when the night you didn’t come home, right before work took you away for a month. I tore into you with my words like I hadn’t before. You had time to process the relationship you had lost, without me to keep those thoughts in the background. I guess you changed. You came back and we were different.

I’ve written an dreamed about the same moments we’ve had together, but today I thought of those moments and felt my throat close. We haven’t had one in a while. Before, I thought you might be on your way to loving me…now that seems very distant. I told you how I was afraid you would get into a relationship, and you asked what if it was with me, and my heart didn’t even leap. I feel so sure you wouldn’t want that to happen. It seems so obvious that you wouldn’t want something more with me, wouldn’t want me to follow you, wouldn’t want me to be your anything labelled.

Work has made us both more tired than ever before. I know that, but it doesn’t make this feel okay. We were clinging to each other with energy and excitement but now it feels like we are standing parallel, half-forgetting that we are holding hands. I don’t feel wanted. You sleep on the couch most nights now. You are angry when I ask, when I beg you, to come to bed. I cry at night and use a heating pad to warm the bed. We don’t go anywhere, certainly not together. Have you even realized that no pictures of us exist?

I should be happy that you told your mom I exist. I should be happy that you have brought me into your home, that you usually say goodbye to me in the mornings. I should enjoy fucking, the days it does happen now. I still wouldn’t give those things up, but they feel rote and half-dead, some wilting thing in my hands as the winter draws closer.

You told me you don’t love me and now I worry you feel stuck with me, tired of me, saddled with me. That somehow you’re supposed to take care of me, that I’m a job, that you don’t actually *want* me around anymore.

You keep asking me what I want for Christmas. Stupid–stupid, that I just want you to want me.

[goodboicerberus]

Today my brain is stuck in the wrong gear.

Today my brain is stuck in the wrong gear. I worry that I am the cause of your depression. The last three people I have been with in any meaningful way were depressed after being with me for a while. I worry that I have made your home somewhere you don't want to be, made your bed a place of exhaustion, that I am somehow responsible for someone you love leaving, even though it wasn't my fault. That I'm a reminder of negative things and I will never Not be a reminder of them.

I think about the future and how even if you wanted me enough for us to try in Chicago you would just go to nursing school and realize the civilian world is full to the brim with women that want to fuck you--uncomplicated, unmarried, shiny and bubbly fuckable women. Women who will get to spend eight, ten, twelve hours a day with you and share inside jokes and overcome obstacles with you and bond with you, all while making eyes. They will excite you and stroke your ego and relentlessly flirt with you until they get into your pants, and then they'll want to get into your life, and when I am standing next to them I will be some dark and twisty malignant growth and you will cut me out. And why not, if all I remind you of is the girl you loved and lost, a friend you didn't do the best by, and a place you never wanted to be?

[goodboicerberus]

"He's gonna have the surgery. Maybe not today, but I'm gonna be on him until my dying breath." "And if he just wants to be left alone?" "You don't leave the people you love alone, Doctor Grey."

S4

[goodboicerberus]

That's all you get, that's it. Moments with the people you love. And they'll move on, you'll want them to move on. But still, Meredith, that's all you get. Moments.

Grey's Anatomy, S3:E