Our breakup is almost 3 years old. I knew this day would get here fast. I’ve been waiting for it. And every year like always, you return heavy on my mind around the anniversary. The love I had for you makes me feel like I want to check up on you. Even after all the bullshit you put me through. But I have to remind myself, no. Every year. Multiple times a year. I’m over you. But you’re imprinted on so many of my memories that it’s almost like I can’t avoid thinking about you even if just for a split second. I see Captain America, I think of you. I see one piece, I think of you. I see someone reference your favorite game of all time, jet set radio, and I think of you. Do you ever even think of me? Have you even allowed yourself the time to think of me? It seemed like right after our breakup, you were on to the next. Like we hadn’t just spent a chunk of our 20s together first as friends for about two years and then later on as boyfriend and girlfriend for 2 years and 7 months. I always have to emphasize the 7 months, because I was born on the 27th day of the month. We broke up on 7.3.23. 

Looking back on things, the relationship still doesn’t feel real. I was on cloud nine and simultaneously on my last life as you drained me and drained me and drained me until I was unrecognizable. You ever think about that? How you used me? Do you even see it that way? You took advantage of me. 

My heart, too big, and you knew this and still stepped all over it. How does it feel knowing you did this to me? The girl you said was your everything and the love of your life. The girl who fell asleep on your chest every night. Drool flowing from my mouth. You wouldn’t even wipe it off you’d just let me drool on you. A few months before we broke up, I asked you why you let me drool all over you. You said you didn’t care and let me lay back on your chest to fall back asleep. Was that love? Did you love me? Cause in that moment, I felt so loved by you. But a few months later, you felt like an enemy. 

I’ve moved on. I’ve dated multiple people. I’ve been in relationships and ‘situationships.’ On edge about how he’s treating me before, during, and after the first date because I had just got done being mistreated by you. Trauma. You caused that. Was that your intention all along? To hurt me because you were hurt by people who came before me? 

I shouldn’t even be so concerned about you. After all you put me through while I played “ride or die chick.” Bending over backwards for you just for you to devalue me. You made me feel sub-human. Less than human. Why do I even care to check on you? Because I spent the majority of our relationship taking on your depression, trying to find ways to save you, inspire you, love on you even harder than I already was. And then you broke up with me through a text message. And I didn’t fight it at all. I accepted it in that moment. And right there is when I woke up and realized who is really…you. Disappointment was an understatement. And when I told you I was disappointed in you, it seemed like I had hurled the most offensive insult at you by the way you reacted. You had such an immense emotional response to me saying that and I could never understand why. And then when I told you that you didn’t actually love me, I saw how much that hurt you, I almost thought you were gonna cry. What even is love? You taught me a version that was so painful. So so so painful. I took on so much pain loving you. 

I felt so powerful and freed when I finally called you what you were. My abuser. I know that hurt you too because after I told you via text, the energy in the apartment had shifted once you returned home from work. I felt powerful and scared all at the same time. Because after all, I was still living with my abuser. What if he does something worse before we finally leave this apartment? I knew the pinning me to the wall and holding me there was just the surface. You were totally capable of more. I heard this story too many times before. It’s starts slow. Subtle. Vague. Hard to catch. And then it gradually gets worse. And once I put a name to it, I started realizing that you did gradually get worse. Because my intuition went off like a siren that one morning you threw the pillow at me that you had slept on during your in the dog house couch sleepover. We had argued the night before. And as you walked toward the door to leave our for work, I laid there, my head resting on the bed, and you threw the pillow towards my head. But it wasn’t playful. It seemed like there was ill intent behind it because I had caught a glimpse of your face as you did it. And when I told you in that moment how I felt you did it on purpose, you minimized it and said you were just throwing the pillow back on the bed. But how does that involve aiming it at my head? That was a few months prior to you pinning me to the sharp edge of our kitchen wall with my hands over my head. My spine aligned with the hard sheetrock edge. My wrists were sore for days afterwards and I was so confused as to why. I woke up one morning, a few days after you pinned me, and I asked myself, “why do my wrists hurt like this?!” I looked at them and examined them with careful intent. The early morning sun beaming on my arms. I’m looking for bruises or scars. I had to get up and get ready for work, but as I sit there analyzing my wrists, I suddenly remember that just a few nights prior, you had a hold on my wrists so tight I couldn’t even move from your grip. How does it feel waking up and going to sleep at night knowing you did that to me, apologized profusely, then later denied it even happened? You feel okay? No remorse? Still able to sleep easy at night with that on your spirit? The love of your life.

I still find it hard to tell myself it was worth it ever meeting you. I thought by now I’d feel like it was necessary. A cannon event per say. And nope. I still wish I would’ve never met you. Fell in love with you. Cared for you. Because then I wouldn’t be wondering how you’re doing almost three years later after you crumbled up the relationship we had built and left me with trauma that caused me PTSD. After I left Fort Wayne, even seeing a Chevy Malibu would make my heart skip a beat. Your car. The Batmobile as you would call it. I was 3 and a half hours away from Fort Wayne, and seeing a Malibu made my nervous system take flight every time. PTSD. Checking the license plate just to make sure it wasn’t you. I did this for MONTHS after the breakup and well after I had departed from Fort Wayne. 

Was it all worth it? No. At least not to me right now. Cause you got to take advantage of me, copy and take bits and pieces of me with you after completely devouring me during our time together. And when it was all said and done, July 3, 2023, you still weren’t done extracting from me. I fuckin hate you and love you at the same time. How can these two feelings coexist?! Idk. But it led me on a journey to figure out what love even is. Bell Hooks. 

I want to forget about you. I pray to God to take the thoughts of you away. You make frequent appearances in my dreams so much so that you’ve now become an official side character. My dreams have a way of storing people there that I haven’t seen or talked to in years. And you became one of them. I hate it. Cause why are you here? You don’t even be having lines in my dreams, you just be there. I got the ick I swear. 

I don’t know how to end this. Because when I think of you, endless memories come flooding my way. We were practically glued to each other’s hips. Did everything together besides work at the same job with each other. Seeing remnants of me on your social media pisses me off. Because why am I still there? After the breakup, it’s like you didn’t want to let me go. You dragged out breaking the lease. Tried to find ways to extend the time we had together but in a sick twisted way. Cause why end a relationship you’re currently in and tell her you want to break the lease knowing you had no intentions on breaking it. You know you couldn’t afford that bill, hell you couldn’t even afford to foot our monthly grocery bill. You just wanted to be spiteful. You wanted to still have access to me without committing to me. But when I grey rocked you after the breakup, I could tell you were expecting me to kiss your ass like usual. But I didn’t. I cut off all of your access to me while we were still living together. I know you peeped it and I know it hurt you. You would try to talk to me as if things were sweet and I would straight up ignore you. 

My life has improved so much. Literally while I was in that torturous predicament of having to share the apartment with you as your ex girlfriend , I was breaking from my cocoon and flexing my wings. I was under immense stress but still somehow found a way to persevere. You weren’t about to continue to dull my light after all you did to me. 

Do you even care that you can’t access me anymore? Can’t text me? Can’t say hey what’s up? Can’t check in on me? Your old best friend. And I’m not dead. I’m alive and well. But your access to me was revoked the moment the rose colored shades came off. I bask in that. The fact that I blocked you everywhere. On every platform. Including your family and all your friends immediately following the breakup. You can’t see me 🤪 or whatever the fuck John Cena said. Not my shortcomings, not my successes, anything! And if you do see me, it’s gonna be my own intellectual property. 

And as I take a deep breath I release all the pain you caused me and return to the original sender, you. I release the urge to see how your bitch ass is doing. You don’t even deserve me in no-contact land. And I release the very idea of you.