Et tu, Brute?

But you said-

“But you said, ‘Forever and always,’” I managed to whisper.

“This is how long our ‘forever’ could last in this universe, and ‘always’ is an easy lie to substitute for the incompetency of meeting the other person’s expectations of ‘today’,” you sighed as you said in my sleep.

---

Leaving doesn’t truly hurt anyone.
Not the one who leaves or the one who gets left behind. The only thing that hurts is the trail of destruction left behind, which comes back in disastrous waves of “nostalgia”, crashing ever so beautifully and poetically on the shore of who we now are.

And I’m sitting on a bench in Coney Island
Wondering, where did my baby go?
- Taylor Swift (Coney Island)

Memories are bittersweet.
They linger like poison on my wine-tainted lips but only intoxicate me on days when I can feel the sunshine on my skin. They like to paint my skies as if they are the artist and not me, sometimes in shades of grey, while other times in a rose-golden palette. They are oftentimes the reason behind me revisiting our sacred shrine while I contemplate leaving us behind on a road I no longer remember right before it all went wrong. On the contrary, they often prick my finger and put me in a slumber of us, where I contemplate why I stayed long after there was no room for me to stay.

Having a drink at our favorite place,
Like we always used to do
This is my new normal without you
- Sasha Alex Sloan (New normal)

Guilt and absence are an analogy for a revolving door.
Guilt is like grease; it sticks on like honey and doesn’t leave till you use every single soap in your house. And even if you do get lucky and get rid of it all, you can still feel it deep in your skin. Just like the silence from the absence of a loved one. It’s not just the silence; it’s how deeply they are embedded into your routine that you forget ‘your normal’ because somehow they are tangled into everything you do – a once-proclaimed ‘invisible string’ which held you together now becomes suffocating.

How could anybody do the things you did so easily?
And I say I don’t care;
I say that I’m fine
But you know I can't let it go.
I've tried, I've tried, I've tried
For so long.
- Olivia Rodrigo (The Grudge)

Grudges are a self-comforting drug
Grudges only deflect the pain one feels; it never truly lets anyone heal. It makes you believe that you are being accountable and leaving the pain behind. But when did healing become a linear equation?
For how long can you point the dagger? Your hand is bound to get tired. But if you get comfort from claiming that only my hands are covered in blood, I’ll quietly get tried for treason and never once whisper your name. The same person you now hold grudges with is the one who held you when your life shattered like a cup of coffee, staining every single thing with it.

Now I get fake niceties
No one teaches you what to do
When a good man hurts you
And you know you hurt him, too
- Taylor Swift (Happiness)

Love is a lie
A four-letter word, which shatters and heals people at the same time. Its existence is a beautiful paradox in itself. It is a poison we very happily drink rather than die of thirst. Define it how you wish, but it’s a double-edged dagger meant to draw blood.

There’ll be happiness after you
But there was happiness because of you, too
Both of these things can be true
There is happiness
In our history, across our great divide there is a glorious sunrise
- Taylor Swift (Happiness)

Note for a special someone(s):

As my final act of love, I would like to say this. I wish I had the courage to do this in person, with each one of you. But sadly I’m a coward.

Love is a lie, but we weren’t.
Because I believe what we had was more than what “love” could define; we were a great dynasty which fell apart brick by brick, just like Rome.

You can hate me for all the years to come, but I won’t. I can’t.
Because I truly believe all these emotions I once had for you can’t so easily be turned into hate. It is not possible. I may have chosen a different path than you, a path which you may not ever understand truly, but you were supposed to, support me.
Isn’t that what friends do? Support each other regardless of what happens?

I may be wrong. 5 years into the future I may regret not having you, but at least I won’t have the regret of not trying. You can call me a liar, but we all know I stayed long after there was no room for me to stay. We know that I tried to live by my interpretations of life and its teachings.
But can you say the same? Can you say you tried your very best? Can you say you put your ego aside and held my hand, rather than holding your own? I may sound selfish and heartless, but how can I have a heart when I fully gave it to you?

I really wished we all would have been a forever, but God knows better. He knows we all deserve more than what we can give each other. I cannot promise you much, but I do promise that all the love I once had for you is never going to be hate. I may hate the way you left; I may hate the chaos you wrecked in the name of love.
But I will never fully hate you, for you have been the reason I survived the worst days of my life. You were the reason I showed up, the reason why I laughed and found joy in life.

Please don’t ever think I will forget you. You were not a lesson; you were a short but beautiful experience. You will forever live in my poetry, for you picked your poison and loved a poet. You are forever immortal, my love.

If you think you are right, I hope you find love and happiness in more ways than you expect. I hope you are forever loved and cherished and fully enjoy life and not just its artificial sweetness. And please give me the permission to ask you all, “Et tu, Brute?”

No Longer Yours, But Still Yours

KK M-L :)