of a girl who thinks too much and feels too much

of a girl who thinks too much and feels too much: first relationship

g.c.

prologue This is a documentation of tear-stained diary entries, empowering livejournal realisations, sappy tumblr posts and other forms of emotional written words that have been brought into this world during the period of the relationship. It was a tumultuous one, and these are honest words formed at the peak of varying emotions.

From our first meeting, to our initial separation, to getting back again, and them him getting back with his ex, us not talking, me getting over him, him coming back into my life, us getting back together, and it finally ending again. The ins and outs and ups and downs of the entire relationship, together with the whirlwind that is my head and my heart have led to a sputtering of words that bled out of hurt and sometimes out of happiness.

I don't know what the purpose of this book is; I think maybe I'm just hoping to not be the only person that has ever felt any of the ways that I have felt.

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firsts

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2 October | tumblr You know it.

When you do absolutely nothing with a boy and it’s the best time you’ve ever had in a while.

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4 October | livejournal i like myself better when i'm with you.

4 October | tumblr in getting to know you, i’m getting to know myself too. and you have no idea how that makes me feel.

4 October | twitter "I don't normally feel this good about what I'm doing."

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6 October | livejournal i'm so scared of fucking this up whatever this is but i've never had someone treat me like this it's all so unfamiliar i don't feel deserving i don't feel good enough

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8 October | written diary I have met a boy.

Someone who treats me well, takes me out Makes me laugh, listens But I have this immense fear that I've already fucked it up I can't even put it into words anymore.

I felt like I didn't deserve him in the first place - so I shouldn't feel surprised, eh?

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8 October | tumblr 'i will never be enough' i whispered as you slept soundly, my head on your chest listening to the steady thumping of your heart, so in sync with the rhythmic rise and fall of your chest your hand was at the small of my back, you liked to trace my spine with your fingers and you fell asleep like that the lightest of touches barely, barely you treated me well. you seemed to like me for who i am. you seemed to care. and i had never experienced that before. but i cling on so dearly to what you could offer warmth, comfort, company, acceptance, intimacy that you seem to be pulling away i fear my past might have caught hold of me i fear once again i have come on too strong i was never not enough i was always too much.

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13 October | tumblr flaws define me, describe me, encapsulate me i am all flaws stitched together with good intentions i hope you see the good intentions. i hope you see the parts of me that try trying to be lovable trying not to fall back into the downward spiral of selfdestruction trying to not go back to what i was. i hope you never learn of my past. or i hope you listen, and you understand, and you accept. i hope you stay.

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14 October | livejournal i don't know what we are but whatever we are is more than enough

14 October | livejournal Would you count being called "one of the most gentlehearted persons I have ever met" as an amazing compliment? Or is it not such a big deal? I'm not very sure about how I feel about it, but that is the way a boy has described me and I am dumbfounded

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16 October | written diary A week on and I still have the same fear. He is so sweet to me when we actually do talk – then he disappears for a few days. I don’t know why and I don’t have the guts to question him.

On Sunday he took me for dinner by the beach, and he told me his friends were asking him about me and what I was like, and he told me he described me as “one of the most gentle-hearted persons I have ever met”, that I was clever and nice. I wasn’t sure how to react; I still am not sure how I feel about that. He turned to me and looked me straight in the eye and repeated it: “You have such a gentle heart.”

Does he genuinely like me or not??!

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17 October | livejournal I play the song "I don't believe in love" over and over again Trying to convince myself that I don't But I do, I do so much The best things in life are always so short-lived, but I'm glad now I know that there are people that will treat me well, even if only for 3 weeks.

Sigh.

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18 October | livejournal i hate feeling like i can't do anything but what can i do when you refuse to let me in

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19 October | tumblr you made me believe that i could be loved that i could be someone that people chose to be around and then you left, and once again i am shown that people never stick around, at least not for me.

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21 October | tumblr the next time i am given the chance to love again i promise i will be more refined hold back my loud boyish laughter be more ladylike be more composed then maybe maybe someone will see me and love me back too.

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22 October | livejournal If we turned back time, could we learn to live right? i shiver just like i used to just for you i hate feeling knots in my chest. i actually feel my heart cave in when i see you, or even when i see your name i don't understand, i don't think i ever will how did things change so fast within a week the first time i actually felt right and felt comfortable with a guy i stepped out of my comfort zone, you broke down some of my walls you made me trust you. everything was going so well, what the fuck happened i can't even begin to explain the immensity of what goes through my head now sometimes it's an immeasurable numbness

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sometimes it's a wave of sadness sometimes it's a hurricane of anger, hurt, resentment, confusion i like telling myself (and the friends that care for me) "well i'm used to it, all guys end up blowing me off, all guys are douches, it’s all old news, doesn't matter" but i never believe it. i never get used to it. it always hurts more when it happens again. i have too much hope, i believed the next would prove me wrong i thought you were going to be the first person to prove me wrong. fucking crying like a baby in my room over a fucking boy, feeling this pathetic is the absolute worst.

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25 October | twitter “Because no one makes me happier and no one makes me sadder than you�

25 October | tumblr i miss you the most when i look down at my hands and see that your fingers are not intertwined with mine.

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25 October | livejournal unfortunate timing, all of it "i am a coward, i run away" "it was never you, it was me" "you did nothing wrong, you were always perfect" "i didn't dare to break the news to you" "i have to leave, i've been called up by the army" "i can't be selfish and expect you to wait for me" "it could be 2 months, it could be 4" "i could even be posted to Afghanistan" "i didn't want to put you through it" "you will find someone better, look at you, you're beautiful" "i was lucky to even bag someone like you in the first place" "i can't ask this much of you, it's not fair" "you will find someone who treats you better, who is taller, better looking, fitter, nicer, a better person" "don't cry because of me, don't" 19

"you and me? this? we were a moment in each others' lives. and i enjoyed every single minute of it, of being with you" "i wish i had met you 6 months earlier" "i like you, i really do, you're soft, gentle, you're so nice, kind, lovely, and so, so clever" "you're beautiful, you need to believe it" "look at your cute nose, your little ears, i like your soft lips, your elegant neck, i like you" "i want you" fucking lines out of a fucking crappy romance novel fuck my fucking life fuck bad timings fuck it all i want to spend every fucking last day with you until you leave you fucking idiot

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26 October | twitter Are you running again?

You you you you you confound me "The worst kind of sad is the kind where you know, deep down, that there's nothing you can do even though you wish you could."

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27 October | livejournal "I hope we can just be friends and get on with life without any complications." is it me was i too rash too loud too forward too much i'm always too much

27 October | twitter the words in my head never make it to my lips, i write but i cannot speak

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28 October | twitter "If you leave someone at least tell them why, because what’s more painful than being abandoned; is knowing you’re not worth an explanation."

28 October | livejournal i don't want perfect, i don't want cautious, i want honest

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29 October | livejournal You Sometimes a sudden wave of emotion crashes over me I swear I've handled this better than I thought I would've But nights like these get the better of me I wish I were in your bed. In your sweatpants and rugby shirt. In the warmth of your embrace.

I miss you.

Please stay safe while you serve the country.

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3 November | twitter I loathe you because you never gave me a chance, you never gave us a chance. You gave up so easily.

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6 November | tumblr in my head i am eloquent when i picture how things might turn out i imagine myself being able to say everything that i intended to and i remark at its smoothness, how the words i think of in my head can be so fluid and not have rough edges but when i look at you an alarm goes off in my brain everything turns to chaos, the little people in my brain run about and struggle to piece together my thoughts and feelings and turn them into speech, i can never find the right things to say even though i KNOW it is somewhere there in my head because i always prepare the words to say, i think of a million different scenarios and i prepare the words to every single possible scene but you you always catch me off guard.

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9 November | a letter to him that he told me to write (but I never gave it to him) All The Things I Want To Say To You I’m sorry I’m so shit at talking, there was once a guy who said talking to me was like talking to a brick wall and I completely agree, I clam up when asked about my thoughts and/or feelings because I’m never even sure about my own answers. It’s like I always think up scenarios in my head and prepare the perfect words to say, but your questions always catch me off guard I guess and the little people in my brain struggle to string together my words and turn it into speech. But don’t get me wrong, I want so, so much to be raw and honest with you, I just don’t know how to, if that makes sense? It must be frustrating, talking to me.

Anyway, I hate it when you say you’re nothing special and that “I can find someone so much better” because I know with all my heart and mind that it’s not true, don’t try to argue this with me because you will never be me 27

and feel what I feel when I’m around you. You need to know that you’re the first person in my life who attempts to understand me and you encourage me to be me and you always remind me of my self-worth and even though I still don’t believe it about myself it’s nice to know someone thinks of me better than what I think of myself.

So for most of my life I always thought that there was something wrong with me and I was always trying to polish down my rough edges but you come along on your fucking war bear (inside joke) and wish for me to be so unabashedly me that in getting to know you, I was getting to know myself too and you have no idea how, for the first time in my life, without the need for drugs or alcohol, you made me feel so free. Like without all the worries and stresses that I keep in my head which you are now very aware of. If that doesn’t take a certain kind of special I don’t know what does. But the thoughts storming in my head are back because once again I don’t feel enough or right or adequate for you and my walls are up because once upon a time you broke some of it down and I enjoyed every single minute of that bit of 28

carelessness with you and then you disappeared and I felt repulsive and I thought maybe you had seen the mess that I am and the ugliness of the depths of my heart so I put the walls back up to stop being so vulnerable.

Last night I didn’t know what to feel when you grasped my arm and I was scared of you, of opening up and giving you the power to rip me apart.

You tell me to be selfish and think for myself and surround myself with things that make me happy but you have no idea how this whole time I actually have been acting selfishly but maybe not in the way you wanted me to, like one of the few reasons why I quite like being around you is because you make me feel good about myself like you take me to a happy place, one that I haven’t been to in a fair couple of years and you make me forget the bad things of my past and I think you make me the best me I’ve ever been and I think I get more out of you than you ever will from me so actually keeping you around has more benefits for me and it is selfish of

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me to do that when I jolly well know that you are not getting anywhere near that amount of benefit from me.

As for now/the future I guess I will have to find a way to view you as just a friend that makes me happy, I honestly don’t want to lose you as a friend or have you completely eliminated from my life, I wouldn’t ever want to get rid of someone who makes me better in the way that you do.

So please stay and be my friend.

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11 November | livejournal 20 the last minutes of my 19th year on Earth were the most courageous minutes of my life so far i took the plunge i told myself that for once i wanted to chase my own happiness i didn't want to sit around and wait for it and if happiness came in the form of being around you then i was going to make it happen 20 seconds of brash honesty, i messaged you saying that i wanted to count down the minutes to my birthday with no one else but you imagine my surprise when you replied that you wanted me to go over to yours after we had watched Thor together earlier as well but didn't want to impose we were both being silly, you said i said "fuck the rain, i'm coming over" you asked if i was sure

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i said "only if i am welcome" and you said i was always welcome in that 7 minute power walk up the hills to your house i prayed to God asking for courage, for faith, for forgiveness for conviction, for fluency in speech i told Him that i was going to fight for what i wanted if being with you was a sin then please forgive me, i said because no one made me happier than you did, i told God i felt like God gave me his blessings I felt like He was happy that i was finding my own happiness i felt like He was proud that i was taking risks i walked up to your doorstep, jeans soaked through from the rain it was 11.58 when you let me in you let me in as i changed into a pair of sweats to allow my jeans to 32

dry it struck 12 and you gave me a penny for luck you wished me happy birthday it was still slightly distant, it was still slightly awkward you were scared too, i knew we joked a bit and then watched remember me it was sad, so i buried my face in your chest instinctively i heard your breath catch. i put my hand on your cheek and you leaned into it when i next looked up into your eyes they were glazed over you cupped my chin with your hand and pulled my lips to yours it was wanting, it was desperate and in the gentlest of breaths you said happy birthday.

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12 November | twitter I will not go gently into that good night. I will not let you go, I will not let this go. sinking feeling

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13 November | tumblr You loved me last night, but what about today?

Call me up, 'cause you know that I'll be there Hell, this is so messed up But that doesn’t mean I don’t care, no "Stay the night" You whisper to me (Well you know that I can’t) but you’ll just cry If I were to disagree Take this away, take this away You loved me last night but what about today You keep saying that we were meant to be Well it must be the alcohol But it feels great when you’re hugging me Into my body you fold

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Your tongue tastes of nicotine But you’re saying that you just had one Wait, why are you kissing me I thought you need some time alone Take this away, take this away You loved me last night but what about today (Lewis Watson – What About Today)

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15 November | tumblr the things that i feel and the thoughts swirled up in my head are stars that i cannot fathom into constellations (ha ha ha overused quote) i look back at us with a half chuckle it was nice while it lasted but why you choose to go back to a girl who cheated on you, who hurt you so deeply, why you choose to give her a second chance instead of even giving us a chance i will never understand

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16 November | tumblr inhale/exhale i clutch your hoodie to my chest inhale slowly losing the scent of your room, of you exhale you gave it to me the morning after our last night together inhale you devastated me when you said that you were getting back with your ex (the hoodie to keep me warm, to keep my insides from spilling out) exhale it makes it so, so hard to believe that whatever we had was real inhale i can still feel your touch on my skin, your breath on my lips

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the impact you had on my life, on me exhale i feel anger, i feel distraught, i find it unfair inhale you decided to give her a second chance when you never even gave me a chance exhale you made me feel so much, you make me feel so much inhale i still clutch your hoodie to my chest; in good time i will return it to you with a smile. exhale

16 November | twitter Soon I'll grow up, and I won't even flinch at your name.

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17 November | twitter “When you give someone your whole heart and he doesn't want it, you cannot take it back. It's gone forever.” – Sylvia Plath

17 November | a letter I never got the chance to send #2 I saw it coming, I should’ve never tried to drag it out, to prolong whatever we had – the moment you disappeared all those weeks ago and left me in the lurch, I should’ve left it as that. Every time you said you’d speak to me later in the day, or come to see me, you never did. And I gave you so many chances. But you never took them. I was never worth the risk.

I wish you told me that the reason this all happened was simply because you weren’t that into me. I think I would’ve accepted that with much more ease. When you 40

keep saying that you care for me “tremendously” and when you make me out to be this amazing, lovely person, it only makes it harder. It bounds my head and my heart in knots and gets me even more confused because how could someone who cares leave me feeling this way? If I wasn’t good enough for someone who seemed to hold me in such high esteem, how was I ever going to be enough for anyone else?

So tell me that I lack. Tell me you hate that I know next to nothing about photography – the one thing I know you love. Tell me it’s stupid that I love Studio Ghibli without having actually seen their films (we watched two and a half of them together). Tell me I’m clingy and overlyattached when I send you drunken texts. Tell me it’s annoying that I seem to have a perpetual cold and I sniffle in bed. Tell me you hate the way my eyeliner is smudged in the morning, tell me you hate my sad eyes, my little tummy paunch, my cold toes under the blankets. Tell me there was something you disliked, something that pushed you away. Don’t tell me nothing 41

about me ever bothered you because something has had to make you feel negatively towards me; I will never believe that you could think perfectly of me yet leave.

Give me something for me to pick apart and hate about myself, give me a reason to berate myself, something to blame this on. If I did nothing wrong, why did you not choose me?

I hope she makes you happier than I ever did, or could.

Soulmates always manage to find their way back to each other, and I’ll be happy for you if it all works out well.

You will trust her again. It will work out.

It’s been an extremely rollercoaster one and a half months. But by the time you receive this I think there will only be a hint of bitterness left in me. I will tuck this in the pocket of your jacket, and return it to you with a “Thank you” and a smile. I will be okay, and you will, too, and then maybe we could start over, and meet again as friends.

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7 December | livejournal it's weird, but i think the problem was that i was perfect in your eyes you didn't see any flaws with me, you told me that (it was very hard to believe) you always said that there was nothing wrong with me and i think the thing is you need someone who sees your flaws and loves you not just in spite of them but for them you need someone who loves your crazy.

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14 December | written diary I think you will always be one of the unanswered questions in my life.

What if? What would’ve happened if you had chosen me? Was there ever a choice?

I don’t know which would’ve hurt less – believing that everything we had was real, that you truthfully enjoyed being with me, that you didn’t think of her when you were seeing me – or calling you out on all your lies, dismissing it as all sweet, flowery nothings, that being with me only paved the way for you to be with her.

Which one would be easier to accept?

I admit – here first- that I am still hoping. Fucking hopeless romanticism. Hoping she’ll mess it up, hoping he’ll realise. And it’s so fucked up how he creeps into my brain, fills it up when I don’t have anything else to think about. Thoughts of him fill up every. fucking. space. I can’t even escape him in my dreams. And it’s so stupid, I know he’s happy with her, I know he’s snuggled

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comfortably in her bed. But hope, hope is such a dangerous thing. Hope is cruel.

“I can’t make you love me if you don’t / You can’t make your heart feel something it won’t” (Bon Iver – I can’t make you love me)

14 December | instagram "I don't think all writers are sad, she said. I think it's the other way around - all sad people write." Miles up in the air and all I wanted to do was curl up in my seat, listen to a bit of James Vincent McMorrow and write about the everything and the nothing that you made me feel.

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21 December | twitter Time to give in, give up, and let go

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22 December | livejournal let go bit by bit i know it is time to move on i can't keep you in a corner of my heart, hoping that one day you'd want to take ownership of it once again, ever ready to let you back in i can't continue holding on to the lofty probability that you'd come back to me, that she would screw it all up once again, that you'd see that i was the one who had always been there you love her. you do. you always have. i probably made you realise that no matter how perfect you thought i was, you can't choose who you fall in love with. however imperfect she was to you, however badly she hurt you, the pain she made you feel, her bad traits that you told me would make me sick of her, you loved her. i am in no place to continue talking to you when i still have motives behind speaking to you, half of me didn’t

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mind being the third party - if that was all that you could offer me - and that makes the other half of me sick. i deserve better, i can do better. i can be a better person than this, whatever this obsession has turned me into. you do not own me, my mind or my body. i do not revolve around you. i need to remind myself that, because the past 2 months have been spent in that way. i have been such a fool. i lay claim over my emotions and the state of my mind and my thoughts, they belong to me now. “One day you're going to miss the subway because it's not going to come. One of these days, it's going to break down and it's not going to come around and everyone else will just wait for the next one or will take the bus, or walk, or run to the next station: they will go on with their lives. And you're not going to be able to go on with your life! You'll be standing there, in the subway station, staring at the tube. Why? Because you think that everything has to happen perfectly and on time and when you think it's going to happen! Well guess what! That's not how things 48

happen! And you'll be the only one who's not going to be able to go on with life, just because your subway broke down. So you know what, you've got to let go, you've got to know that things don't happen the way you think they're going to happen, but that's okay, because there's always the bus, there's always the next station...you can always take a cab.� – C. Joybell C.

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recurrence

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15 January | livejournal it's just so sad because now you come forth with proclamations and everything and i do not know how to react because i can't look at you or think of us without remembering how you hurt me and the mess you left me in and you never checked up on me and you never kept your promises and now you are offering so much and you are promising on your promises and if all these things you are saying to me were things you thought of and acted on 2 months ago things would have been very different but you chose her and it took that mistake to make you realise that she was not the one for you again but i was already not waiting for you and i was already moving on and now you pop back into my life and you make me stop in my tracks even though all i want is to go away is to break free from you is to find someone else who will treat me better and it's like i don't feel that yearning or 51

want of you anymore i don't feel that for you anymore all you are to me now is a good friend i can have some banter with and who won't judge my overuse of the word "fuck" and knows my moods and the music that i like and i know that you know me and then i wonder for all that knowing why do you not know that i will not want you back so stop saying all your sweet anythings again i won’t call them nothings because clearly you realised i would've treated you better than she did but stop saying you choose me to make your life better stop referring to you and i as us or we because you and i are not a collective you and i are not together you and i are separate minds and souls and bodies and hearts so stop telling me that you want us to go on adventures together and stop saying we could run away and stop saying we should go for gigs together because no there is no us there is only you and i and you and i both need to go on our separate paths now

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21 January | twitter (I'm just gonna follow my heart, I'm just as scared as you are, love is a drum and it's beating, beating)

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24 January | livejournal i understand second chances now sometimes it never works out the first time because of simply bad timings because of fear, because of external circumstances how this became even more beautiful the second time round i will never understand but when i was making some retarded remark you were just staring at me with the goofiest of smiles on your face and i was like "...what?!??" and you said that you really liked me that you really really liked me and i realised that’s the first time i've observed it from the receiving end you know when someone is talking and you're just like wow i just really really like you and i could listen to your voice forever even though you may be talking about honey badgers and cats well i've had that thought for 2 guys in the entirety of my life and now 1 of them feels the same way 54

well yeah it's weird being on the receiving end of that and my brain went into a flurry and you said it again like 30 minutes later when i was probably making another stupid comment and i was like fuck is this real who are you i know that almost nada of my friends are agreeing with me for getting back into this and he knows it too but he wants to try to gain all of your trusts, starting by gaining mine again and i don’t know this is real this is happening to me i still can’t believe it but it is oh my god

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28 January | livejournal "A star falls from the sky and into your hands. Then it seeps through your veins and swims inside your blood and becomes every part of you. And then you have to put it back into the sky. And it's the most painful thing you'll ever have to do and that you've ever done. But what's yours is yours. Whether it’s up in the sky or here in your hands.

And one day, it'll fall from the sky and hit you in the head real hard and that time, you won't have to put it back in the sky again." – C. Joybell C.

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31 January | livejournal how much of acceptance is love closing both eyes? fine lines and tossed away feelings i don't know if you should be the one to not make me feel this way or if it's me who just should not feel this way.

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6 February | tumblr There will come days where he will let you down; Do not give up on him.

There will be times when you doubt his care for you; Do not give up on him.

See him trying when he surprises you at work; Do not give up on him.

See him trying through his way of loving you Do not give up on him.

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12 February | written diary Barely a month of 2014 has passed and it feels like so much has happened yet so little has happened at the same time. I’m kind of seeing him again and for the past few weeks I was wowed by how serious he seemed to be taking “us” but today he starts talking about how I can find someone better and nice again and it sends me back into so much uncertainty. And the number of times that I actually consider doing it...

The past few days few days have been weird I’ve been in an incredible emotional funk there’s like white noise in my head and I can’t get at it I feel exhausted and frustrated and all I think I need is a good cry and an early night in bed because days are getting tougher and nights are getting harder to sleep through and it baffles me how I long to be in your arms sometimes and sometimes all I want is to get away from you and it scares me, all of it.

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You and your acceptance and your warped impressions of how amazing I am what will happen when you learn of my scars when you see the blackness of the corners of my heart when you realise I am but a damaged good that people pick up and put down that I am not of intrinsic value that I will weigh you down So I expect you to put me down too.

And maybe I’m pushing you away before you get too close too.

But I want to be yours, I think.

I’m not sure anymore.

I just want to know what this is.

What we are.

My brain is a mess.

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13 February | twitter on a night like this where my mind is a mess and my thoughts are falling apart i feel like i should be one with the stars in cloudy skies

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16 February | written diary The way my words left my mouth.

Rough edges, raw, unrefined.

You asked what I was thinking about and it was the first time I didn’t say “Nothing”.

Instead I found these words escaping my lips: “I think I quite like you. Maybe.”

It came out in a half-squeak, half-whisper.

It was not graceful.

I wonder if I shouldn’t have said it.

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25 February | twitter Maybe I'm too busy being yours to fall for somebody new “When someone makes you the happiest person and the saddest person at the same time, that's when it's real.

That's when it's worth something.�

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26 February | livejournal a jumble of thoughts your eyes when you first open them in the morning are clear and reflective the colour an ocean is when the skies overhead are a gorgeous bright blue (i would say they were the colour of pure sapphires but i am not that cheesy) you blink a few times, adjusting to the light pouring through the windows above us (it does get incredibly bright in your room) your eyes then become a mixture of the yellow of clear honey and the green of a lake in the middle of a forest, specked with tinges of the grey of storm clouds (i am still unable to describe fully the colour of your eyes, for they are not just green) and they stay that way 80% of the rest of the day (i think)

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your eyes are my favourite part of your body they are a mystery, just like you it was hard to choose though for i like your button nose the stubble along your jawline your baby curls your weird hairline the angles of your collarbones the protrusion of your shoulder caps your strong arms your weirdly stubby fingers your hands that look so rough but give the gentlest caresses but your eyes are also my least favourite part of your body for they see right through me and even with all my clothes on i will always feel naked around you.

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please don't go, i've never held the hand of someone that wanted to understand the dusty corners of my soul before. (my thoughts are falling into disorientation) they say that if a writer falls in love with you, you will be immortalised in the form of words. i dread the day i will have to refer back to these words to remember you.

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2 March | livejournal are you afraid of this? you were in an emotional funk yesterday and i tried to make you feel better out of nowhere you tell me that you cannot be fixed, i reply that i do not want to fix you i do not have any intention to (unless you meant it in the coldplay way) because i accept your broken bits and bobs we all have breakages within us that's what makes us fundamentally human i know you will never be perfect or whole but whatever is there is enough for me and i wish you could believe that you always tell me that you're there for me, that you want 67

to earn my trust again i wish you'd see that it's the same for me. i want you to tell me things. i want you to share your troubles. i know you are the kind of person to hold it all inside and not let anyone in, trying to handle everything by yourself but we all need a helping hand sometimes, we all need a shoulder to cry on i want you to rant at me and i want to listen and i want to understand. i will listen and i will try my best to understand. and i will not try to fix you but i will hold your hand and make you forget what needed fixing in the first place.

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4 March | twitter Yes to you, yes to all the baggage you bring with you.

Yes to your brokenness, yes to your hurt. Yes, yes, yes, you.

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8 March | livejournal another jumble loving you is part uncomprehensible, part choice. the number of times i've questioned why i'm sticking around and the number of times i've answered that with "i can't imagine myself leaving" but sometimes i know that if i chose to walk away, if i chose to end it all it would happen, i would be able to do it, to cut all ties, to get over you, again but i choose you. i choose your complexities, i choose your troubled past, present, coming future. i choose your weaknesses and i choose your fears. i choose this. whatever this is, (i know you guys are seeing each other, but, like, are you exclusively going out? what are you?) (what is this preoccupation with exclusivity anyway?

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surely if you liked someone enough to go out with them multiple times you wouldn't be looking out for other people to date, would you?) i trust that you respect me and you respect us the way i do you. what i wrote in the previous post i wrote in a letter and gave it to him half expecting him to be overwhelmed, creeped out, finding it all too much, too big a confession all he said was that it was beautiful. it just hit me that i know what to respond to people who ask me what we are we are just two people who enjoy each other's company, who enjoy each other's presence tremendously. honestly i think that's all we are, and all we need to be.

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12 March | livejournal unspool me nights like these get the better of me and i think too much and feel too much and what can i do but sit here wrapped in my blanket wondering why you haven't replied or why you're not talking to me or asking me how my day was we're like a newton's cradle we touch each other sometimes and then you pull away or i do and then we get close again for a moment and then that moment is gone yesterday you couldn't stop talking to me and for the first time in a long while i felt like i was occupying your mind not randomly crossing it like i probably do most of the time but actually appearing your mind and staying in it that's how you are in my mind. you never leave it. it was nice the minute i went online on my phone in the middle of my lecture and your name pops up and we talk about the weather and about plans for the day and i told 72

you my incredibly busy monday schedule and going to see the doctors' (for which you had forced me to ring up for an appointment in front of you, and giggled at the way i put on an accent when i speak on the phone) and you were like oh please let me know what the doctors' say and it was nice when you came to visit me at work nice the way you looked at me when you ordered could you feel my cheeks heat up when your eyes they bore into me when i was pressing buttons on the till it was nice when you said "hey, how are you, love?". i don't know how you do it why i still feel like this after 6 months of knowing you 3 months of kind of seeing you the butterflies that release into my belly the nerves that go numb within my body the people that run around in my head in all alarmism how you set things off within me the lightning bolts that strike my heart i still go to jelly when i see you i thought i should be used to it, to you by now but i haven't and maybe it's how sporadic we get to spend time together and how our schedules clash so

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much that every inkling of every second that i get to see your face i still get excited and i still get proud and i still plunge myself into disbelief that this, this boy with the bright yellow-green eyes, this boy that picks fallen eyelashes off my cheeks and much prefers to plant soft kisses on the back of my head than doing anything else, this boy that has become my highest confidante, this boy maybe likes me too? so maybe i'm making you out to be too much maybe i'm not supposed to be feeling so much maybe i shouldn't have had the biggest grin plastered on my face when i read your text that you had bought another lychee drink for me after you came to give me one last week and i told you it tasted like goddamn sorcery but you know how some people don't necessarily get addicted to the drug but they get addicted to the highs and then the crashes it's that flux of state of being that rollercoaster ride that gives them a rush is that what i'm addicted to as well because you give me so many highs

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one day and then i don't know how you are able to go about the next day giving cold-one word replies i say cold but you might just be busy and maybe i should give you the benefit of the doubt maybe i should give myself the benefit of the doubt but it always sends me into panic and i go over every single thing i have said or done towards you in the past 48 hours analyse my words did i say or do something wrong is this the end are you bored or annoyed by me already? why are you not bored or annoyed by me already? i am such an uninteresting person and i am too clingy and i am so flawed. is it bad that i always am expecting the end of things to come like i keep imagining the break up if there even is something to be broken but i keep imagining a separation of hearts minds and bodies and i feel like one day it will come because of me and you realising i am more broken than you are you realising that when i stoop down to pick up your pieces parts of me fall off too and the floor becomes a mess and jumble of broken

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fragments and every day i cut myself trying to differentiate between the two and i don't know where this unspooling has led to dark steps beyond the breaches of my mind if i told you i couldn't fall asleep would you give me the same sweet assurances would you show that same amount of concern that you show her

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14 March | twitter My chest hurts from tobacco but my head hurts from gnarly thoughts recklessly tossed into the ocean i don't even know if i'm fighting for something that doesn't even exist anymore.

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16 March | twitter "Angry, and half in love with you, and tremendously sorry, I turned away." - F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby

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17 March | livejournal a letter to you to get these thoughts out of my head so i can do my essay in peace hi. i... who am i to you? what place do i hold in your life? what is this, and what do you want from me? what do you want out of this? because there... there is nothing. i can't be the only one who keeps trying. it takes two to tango, it takes balance to keep a boat afloat. our boat is sinking and i'm the only one trying to scoop water out of it whilst you're boring more holes in the hull. i told you that i chose to stick around. exactly a week ago, i said that. that's right. it's a choice. it means that in equal parts i can choose to not stick

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around anymore. i can choose to stop putting up with your animosity, your disregard for me your disrespect, even if you do it knowingly or not. and now i have decided i am choosing to walk away. there. we did it. it's over.

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18 March | livejournal i know i was the fool but you you are not a good person and i can learn but you will never change. thank you for lying to me and cheating on me. thank you for not even trying to make a clean cut with me first, instead trying to make distance between us by not contacting me. was i not worth the truth? grow a pair and man the fuck up and say what you need to say in my face. i had to coax it out of you and you were all like oh i dont want to lose you that would be horrible i really do want you in my life i'm not blind, i'm not stupid i observe things and i see things and i understand. always full of excuses for yourself good fucking luck to the next girl you put your lips on. you're not broken, you're the one who breaks things.

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you destroy and you hurt and you don't find any guilt in any of it.

18 March | written diary It’s all over.

Again.

The thing is – you don’t try.

You say you can’t see us working out but did you ever give it a chance to?

Somewhere along the line you stopped caring.

I felt it, that pull away, the distance.

So last night I asked you to explain, to clarify the situation regarding “us”.

I expected every word.

It still angered me though.

And a part of me that hoped for the best was shattered.

I am broken but I will fix myself.

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You say you are broken but don’t you see you are the one who breaks things?

You give up so easily on us, on me, you don’t see it worth the effort.

Relationships take effort.

It takes two to tango; I can’t be the only one pedalling on a tandem bike.

So screw you and the way you try to sugar coat things The way you don’t face up to your responsibilities The way you treat me.

I deserve someone who values a relationship as much as I do, someone who wants to team up with me in the game of life, goes through fights, high points, low points, whatever the case; I will find someone who deems me important enough in his life to step out of his comfort zone and go on a journey with me.

And I know you will never be that sort of person.

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20 March | twitter "I hope we can still be friends" - the cheater to the cheated, you throw me a lifeline but you should be the one drowning in the ocean

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21 March | a livejournal post I later copied into an email and sent to him letter #4; i half expect you to delete this without reading it but a 50% chance is better than nothing i hope you know there is completely no reason for us to be friends. you said you wanted to talk it out, but you clearly had no intention to do so. talk is cheap, actions speak a lot louder than words if you truly wanted to be friends you would've made the effort to contact me, to sort it out, to explain yourself and "try to work it out" but you didn't, so i'm really glad to know how much i mean to you now, how much you had already given up on me. so here is the gist of what i want to say to you. i know you didn't plan to let me know about any of it until i called you out on it and you had to, don't give me any bullshit about waiting til it was past my deadlines.

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that's the way you tackle problems, you distance yourself from it and sweep them under the carpet and pretend it's not there and hope it just goes away. i know that's what you wanted to do with this, you wanted to leave it there to die off by itself. it's nice to know that i wasn't worth the truth, wasn't worth being upfront and honest to. dont say any of this is unfounded or said out of spite, you know i'm not that kind of person to carelessly accuse others. if we were really "good friends" i would think that you could at least be honest with me? be upfront with me and stop making excuses about everything. when i told you that you were a choice that i made consciously, it meant that in equal parts, i could've chosen to walk away. why didn't you just tell me not to bother? why didn't you say you meant it whenever you asked me to move on and find someone else? because i could've. i would've. it still wouldn't be easy but at least you would have saved me the effort and trouble of figuring out if 86

you really wanted me in your life or not, wondering if i was consumed by paranoia or if it was a valid worry. i didn't want to assume things because i thought you could've been distant because of all the problems you've been facing. so i gave you space, i gave you time, but i didn't know what you wanted from me. i guess you didn't want either of those things. you can't expect me to know what to do or the words to say if you never gave me a chance to understand. i know full well my knowledge and understanding of you can never compare to someone else who's known you and your close friends and family for 3 years. this is not about timing, this is not about busy schedules. we both know that. so, i'm telling you all of this not because i want you to feel like a deer in the headlights, guilty, as charged. for the sakes of all the people who care for you i want you to realise you can't keep doing this. i know you can't change who you are. i don't want you to 87

change who you are. who you are is not what you do, who you are is a sensitive, old soul who you are is a guy with such a strong sense of brotherhood, of aspiration and of intelligence. who you are is a person who sees the beauty in the ordinary. what you do, though, does not exemplify who you are at all. you can't not care what everyone thinks about you, you do need to know sometimes a 3rd person's point of view is less clouded than your own perspective of yourself. you do especially need to care about what the people who care for you think about you. they do it from the good intentions of their hearts. you need to sometimes think about the consequences of what you do, the people you hurt. it's hard for me to think you didn't care about how i'd feel throughout this entire thing but i do need to accept that you really didn't. do you know it hurts more feeling like you're not worth the truth and the effort, than being told the actual truth no 88

matter how harsh how horrible it may be? you can't keep running away from your problems. i know, i know, "that's what you do". but don't you remember pushing me to confront situations head-on? to fight it out? to solve conflicts that way? do the same. face up to your problems and your issues. iron out your creases not just on your clothing but of the relationships and situations in your life. that's all i ask of you. sort it out. for your sake. i know you are broken but you, you break people too. sincerely, someone who cared.

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22 March | livejournal "There is a girl out there who still writes you, she doesn't know how not to."

I woke up today terrified.

I dreamt about you last night, in my dreams I wanted you back.

In my dreams you came back.

Hope, Hope is cruel.

Waking up in the morning fearing that you broke something within me That you didn't break my heart completely in two but just turned it into a compass that always pointed towards you No matter how I try to push my thoughts away That space between the end of a dream and before I awake fully - that semi-conscious limbo You still find me there and I can't push them away.

It attacks me when I'm most vulnerable, when my mind and body are meant to be at rest.

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And I wake up frustrated, scared Sometimes I give in to the thoughts. I think "I don't want to suppress my feelings" and I give in.

You, you, you, and the way you made me feel.

You, you, you, and the way you make me feel.

And I realise, I still don't know what to think, I still don't know what to feel.

Do I be angry? At you? At her? At me?

I went to yoga on Wednesday for the first time to try to untangle the clusters in my head.

To end the session was a relaxation exercise, where you lay on the floor and let go, feel your body connect with the ground, let go of the stiffness and the separation of the entities of body and ground. Ground your mind, I guess.

And one by one I felt my limbs go. "You don't have a soul. You are a soul. You have a body."

It was weird, the areas which were the most tense, which I could feel the weirdest form of tangible, internal pain (it felt like what conflict would feel like), was my chest and the frontal lobe of my brain. The head and the heart.

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The thoughts and the feelings.

I tried to let go.

I loved you. I never told you I loved you. When your back was facing me in bed I'd trace ai1 onto your bare skin, finding that it connected the little moles and freckles and bumps in your skin perfectly. I loved the nicks on your jaw from you having to shave everyday, because "your hair grew back every single day, but never enough for you to grow out proper facial hair". I loved that your hair didn't just grow on your jaw, giggled when there were a few on the high of your cheeks. I hate sloping shoulders on men but yours never fazed me. You weren't that tall, your grammar was horrible, you cracked the lamest jokes and you did the stupidest dance moves whilst lying down. You made me groan but you made me laugh. I loved feeling embarrassed of you even if it was just the two of us sharing that moment. I loved being silly with you. I could go on. Put your face in 1

Chinese character for “love�

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the palms of my hands again, let me feel your rough edges. Let me wake up to amused yellow-green eyes already peeking out at me, half-hidden by pillows. Let me hear you say "Hey," the way you do every time I looked at you. The way it always sounded like it ended with a comma, but that was the way it was. Ended with a comma. I never got used to them, I felt silly saying "hey" every time you did. So I'd give you the most sincere smile I had, and I hope you could feel it. See it in my eyes. That I would never tire of hearing them even if I never replied. Because they made me smile. You made me smile. Put your head in the crook between my neck and my shoulder again, let me protect you. Put your hand in mine again, let me hold you.

There are no more agains.

You are not coming back.

I think I still love you.

I'm trying not to.

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"One day you fall for this boy. And he touches you with his fingers. And he burns holes in your skin with his mouth.

And it hurts when you look at him. And it hurts when you don’t. And it feels like someone’s cut you open with a jagged piece of glass."

22 March | twitter "You will fall into her bed and I'll go back to spending Friday nights with boys who never learn my last name"

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23 March | twitter Write, write until your fingers bleed and your heart stops hurting.

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25 March | twitter What will she think when she goes into your room and sees bits of me left behind, all around her?

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28 March | livejournal i saw you last night and i panicked. i was torn between ignoring you and showing you i was having a blast of a time with my own circle of friends and willing you to come over speak to me, speak to me i... i still feel. the ripping off of the bandage over my wound hasn't quite stopped stinging yet. i'm not going to lie. i do miss you. and for a moment i wished things between us were normal again normal a la your hand placed at the small of my back protective but not grabby mine normal like having tickling fights and childish banter and comfortable silence. normal like me and you, us.

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but i've come to the point where i think i am accepting it accepting that two people can fall in love yet never be destined to be together in a parallel universe i believe that someone that's exactly like me and someone exactly like you are happily together in a parallel universe circumstances could have been different but in this universe things just didn't work out. thinking about the good that has come out of this relationship i'm glad it happened without you i wouldn't have been able to pick myself up in January after my friend’s death without you being a demanding motherly figure i wouldn't have gone to the doctor to sort out my flu without you i wouldn't have explored my possibilities, set myself out to do more, aim higher. you pushed me, you believed in me, you gave me more confidence in my own abilities than anyone else could 98

ever do. you let me open up again, release the bit of me that i kept in a shell after a traumatic college experience. you made me more me. and no one, no other person, nothing that happens or has happened, can ever take that away.

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31 March | tumblr did i scare you away? if i could pinpoint the exact moment you gave up on me it would be the last day we spent together, when you lay your head on my chest you said “wow, your heart’s beating really fast” that’s when i knew i wanted you more than you wanted me.

31 March | livejournal Yellow I read somewhere that Van Gogh ate yellow paint because he thought that since yellow was a happy colour it would maybe make him happy from the inside out.

I watched the daffodils on my window ledge wilt and as I held their petals between my fingers they disintegrated

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into yellow mush.

And then I thought of you.

Yellow? Blue I would understand why, blue is your favourite colour and the colour of all your jumpers and the colour of your new coat, chinos and sweater that I had picked out for you and you bought them without skipping a beat because "How do you do that? Know what I like and be so on point?" But it was just because they were blue. Blue like the sadness of your soul and blue like the coldness of the words you do not speak to me anymore. Blue like the patches on my skin that you once kept warm with your embrace.

But yellow? Yellow was the tinge in your greenish eyes.

Yellow was the colour of the top I wore when we spent Valentines' Day together hating the commercialisation of it but becoming the very couply essence of having brunch in bed and playing video games. I still maintain that I won 60% of the races. Yellow is the bit of you I enjoyed and the part of you I am grateful to. But yellow is

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also the colour of acceptance and moving on. As the daffodils bled onto me I knew not all beautiful, cheery things lasted forever. Once they are gone from the corner of my room I know I am going to feel a sense of loss, like there is a void, a space there that needs to be filled.

But new flowers blossom every day, and the daffodils that I will toss into the bin once they are past their date will not be missed.

They were turning brown anyway.

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1 April | written diary Home used to be the sound of your voice.

Home used to be the look on your face when I walked through the door.

It used to be the folded pyjamas on my side of your bed.

It used to be your arm around my waist, clutching me tightly.

Home used to be the morning “how are you”s, the links to songs on youtube to wake up to.

Home used to come in the form of you.

To me, home has always been a feeling, not a place. It can be the feeling I have with family back in the city I grew up in or with friends here. It can be the feeling of the wind on my face on a solitary stroll.

But for the past 3 months home and its associated comforts came in the form of you.

I didn’t know homes could hurt. How warm fireplaces lash out with fiery tongues, boiling kettles screech in annoyance. Creaking floorboards made it uneasy and 103

there were far too many secrets and problems swept under the carpets.

I don’t know what kind of person you are anymore. You hurt me so recklessly, you didn’t care. As much as I want to hate you and call you names why would I undermine the person I truly cared for? You weren’t like that before.

You used to care.

So for now I take comfort in myself. Home is when I am me, alone in my room penning down my thoughts, or out chatting with friends over coffee or a pint or two. I take comfort in the fact that my heart is still beating – only this time, it’s beating for me, and the goddamn awesome life I’m going to live without you.

-end-

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last words If you’re reading this after going through the entire book, I applaud you. For not getting exasperated with me and the things that I did, dismissing me as being silly and closing this before you got to the end. I guess looking back it was kind of obvious that he was going to hurt me again, but I wanted to believe so much that he had changed and that he was serious about me the second time round. I think we have all been in circumstances where we give chances time and time again, and the other person always fails to reciprocate a kindness he does not see. I wonder if you’ve read this and managed to identify with every conflicting emotion that I have. If you are going through something as tumultuous as this, remember: Things will always work out; you will find the strength that you need within yourself. If someone makes you feel 105

as uncertain as I did about the relationship, call them out on it. They should be constantly assuring you that you are what they want, through their actions and not just their speech. In the times I felt secure in the relationship, he was the one who was pouring out his care and concern without me having to coax it out of him.

Remember that there is no such thing as being too busy, only something known as “prioritisation”. Listen, you do not need another being to make you whole. I do not believe in the Greek myth about humans having to search their entire lives for their other half. You are enough for you.

In writing this book and compiling all my written words I feel like I’ve gained a sense of closure. I’m able to see how I managed to learn from this, and I think I’ve come out a stronger, more confident person. As for him and I, I am pretty certain there will be no third time lucky. At the moment he hasn’t broken the silence yet, and I have no intention of making the first move. We’ll see.

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