Lover

Dear lover,

I’ve always loved you. I wanted you to love me as you did her. I pushed you far away because I knew my hair wasn’t gonna be as black as hers. I knew my skin could never be as pale as hers. I knew I could never build the friendship that y’all had. I knew with my heart, that you belonged to another, but I still managed to break mine every time I would see you.

When your name flashed across my screen, I would feel a rush of excitement and anxiety. I would follow you at the drop of a hat. I would cheer you on from the sideline. But your eyes wore always on hers. You loved her. I was just another girl to you. And for months I was okay with that, but I broke down.

I crashed my car one day and as I sat there for two hours waiting on a tow truck, I was hoping you would come to rescue me. You never came. I knew that it didn’t matter how I felt, because you would always love her over me. I wasn’t your first choice and I never would be.

You wore my hardest hello and goodbye. I never said goodbye to you. I was scared and I just left you without another word. For that I’m sorry. Please know that my heart was broken and I couldn’t bear to see you happy with her. So I walked away from us forever. I’ll always love you. You wore my best friend, but I wasn’t yours. You wore my first heartbreak but I wasn’t yours.

Thank you lover.

Oh, Lover. I devoted my time to you. I devoted my patience to you. I loved you. But did I truly love you?

It didn’t matter to me if I had loved you or if I wanted to love you. You see I desired your company over my own. I fantasized a world for the two of us without even knowing your middle name. I was hungry for affection and with that, anyone would do. Lover, I wanted to love you because I was afraid of loving me.

If I stayed up on the phone with you for hours then you would see how much I cared for you. What I didn’t see was that every minute I invested in you was stealing time away from myself.

I loved you. But did I love you? You wore my distraction and my escape from this world but you weren’t the hero that I wanted. You seemed to never measure up to my standards and why was that? Wore my standards too high? Why was I feeling this void when I was with you? I needed you so desperately that you became my drug of choice.

I would anxiously wait for your text message or your call and all I wanted was to hear you speak. To know that you would spend time talking to me was all I desired. You wore my knight in shining armor, you wore my lover, and you wore gonna change my whole world. You failed. You weren’t my hero. You never saved me from this feeling in myself. You disappointed me. But I never left you. I stayed with you even if there was no love between us.

Why Lover? Why would you leave me? If you leave then I will find a new lover and they will be the one for me. I will find this person and they will love all the flaws I have. Lover? What do you mean I’m to perfect for you? Lover, what do you mean I’m to smart for you? Lover, what do you want me to be? I can fit into any mold you want me to be in. Lover, I need you. Lover, please don’t leave me. Lover, you left me. Why? I was what you wanted me to be. I was quiet when you needed me to. I was argumentive with you when it pleased you.

Lover I looked at how you wanted me to. What’s wrong? If you wanted me to cut off my nose I would’ve. If you wanted me to travel hundreds of miles to see you for a min I would’ve. Lover, I would’ve been whatever you needed or wanted me to be. The day you left me, lover, I was lost. What do I do when I don’t have a lover to control me. Who am I? Lover, I need you. Lover, please come back. I was dazed and confused and without someone to hold my hand then what should I do? What is a single woman to do by herself?

Dear lover,

I tried rock climbing today. I wasn’t very good at it but I found the higher I climbed the more I wanted to climb. It was the most fun I had ever had. I’m not as strong as some others in this facility but I’m gonna get stronger so that I can climb even higher than them.

Once I reached the top of my wall. I decided to delete your number lover. I know its silly but I figured since you are not coming back then I needed to do the same. I came back home and regifted some of the gifts you gave me. I didn’t have the heart to destroy them but I wanted someone to look at that blue teddybear and love like I once did.

Thank you lover.

Dear lover,

“I love you. Don’t you love me as well?”. “Um. I think so.” I never loved you. I was conned into saying that precious word. But I never loved you and you never loved me. We wore two eager kids with a desire for affection and so we pretended that it was love. Oh, how silly I was to believe that you would care for me. So with that four-letter word, I decided to fall head over heels for you. I would drive hours just to lay the night with you. And was it so spectacular? No, It was nothing more than a disappointment to myself.

I truly believed you loved me at the time but I didn’t love myself to appreciate you. You seemed so cold and distant but the truth was that I wanted you to be those things so you couldn’t see that I was those things. I couldn’t love you,because I didn’t know what loving another person truly meant. I’m sorry lover for the words but I’ve never loved you. Lover, I used you to get over another. You wore simply just a pawn that I played with because I knew that I could get your affection whenever I wanted it.

Thank you lover.

Dear lover,

I wanted to write to you to say that I’ve deleted all dating apps and I’m gonna take a break from dating. I’m not hurt from the outcome of us but rather I’m heartbroken with myself. I need time to understand why I would sacrifice my happiness just for you. Why I would come to see you and devote myself to you if I didn’t love you? I was lost and you wore damaged beyond repair. We wore two broken souls looking for our next fix of desire and nothing more. It was fake love and we wore the fools.

Thank you lover.

Dear lover,

You can toy with my heart like no other. I finally understand why. You are exactly what I wanted but not what I need. You seem to understand my hurt and you seem to enjoy the pain you would continuously cause. You loved to see me chase after you. You loved to see me fawn over you. You loved to see me answer your calls and texts but you could never answer me.

You never wanted to know me. I was your pawn, not your queen. I was used for your enjoyment and what about mine? Oh, you never cared about mine. I loved it when you would finally pop up out of the blue to talk to me. I loved it when you wrote me love letters and you would say how much I meant to you. But I never meant that much to you. I always came in second place to your ego. You could never understand or love me as you did for yourself.

So, lover, you’re the last one that I wanted to say goodbye to you. I no longer need a distraction. I no longer need you or want you. I only want myself.

Thank you lover.

Dear lovers,

Goodbye! For this is me saying goodbye to you for good. I’m ready to heal my heart by myself. I wanna say thank you, lovers, for teaching me what I truly want in this world. And that’s, not you but its me.

I needed the lessons each of y’all have taught me about myself for me to move on. I in some way needed all the heartbreak, anger, headaches and confusion for me to see clearly about myself.

You all were so different but the same. I met each of you at a different point in my life. But I was trying to heal the same problem with different people. I wanted to have someone who cared for me the way I’ve grown up seeing. I wasn’t finding that. When I had someone who adored me and loved me, I wasn’t happy. I was miserable, because I felt like I had to be everything and more to them.

I no longer need a band-aid to fix my heart. I no longer need a man to fill this void that my father opened and I let fester. It’s my turn to love myself unconditionally for the rest of my life. It’s finally time that I learn to love myself without a man.

Love Storm