The Pathetic Ramblings of a Girl Who Thinks She Invented Heartbreak, Jealousy, and Other Mammalian Emotions, Just Because She's Only Now Feeling Them.

Disclaimer: mild NSFW mention?

     And in that time? I was a monster. Controlling. Jealous. Neurotic.

     But he wasn’t innocent either. No, he fed it. He liked it, he let it grow. We were parasites locked in one host, chewing each other hollow. He influenced me, I influenced him, we spun around and down and down until the floor gave way. We used to call each other angler fish, or tape worms. As if that's romance.

     And yet, we didn’t break in fire. No screaming, no broken glass, no dramatic finale. Just... Ended. An ending that wasn’t even loud enough to count as real. And somehow we’re still... what? Friends? Best friends? To me, yes. To him, I’m just another face in his social collection. Shiny best friends from his shiny public school life, all white smiles and inside jokes I don’t get to hear.

     He thinks he belongs with those neat nail-bedded gender-conforming monsters. As if he isn't the exact freak they'd pull their faces at if they knew more about him. If they knew what I know about him. They don't deserve him. They're too idiotic to understand who they're standing before. If they knew, if they understood, they'd bow. But... Maybe my anger is turning me cruel once again.

     Everyone is either superior or inferior. The superior ones make me violently angry, the inferior ones are like little dogs. But for once, for once, I had found an equal.

     He was the only one who mattered. The only one who ever registered in my ribcage. The only one whose tears vibrated against my bones. There was no transaction, no bargain. Just him.

     We made plans, big stupid plans. Marriage. A dog. Maybe one of those ugly lizards he likes. He prefered the red tegus. Now? Now it’s ashes. Dust. I don’t even know where to put my hands anymore.

     He’s moved on. I pretend I have too. Pretend while I sneak off into the arms of strangers, and then I come home and rot in the jealousy I have no right to feel. What right do I have, when I’m guilty too? None. None. None. And yet I want him back, like a hunger in my chest that doesn’t shut up.

     We tell each other everything. EVERYTHING. Your secrets, my secrets, his secrets, all the same bloodstream. You whisper something to me, I hand it straight to him, like we’re one person with two mouths. He answers to my name, I answer to his. So why can’t we share this too? This rotting want, this red ache in my throat, this buzzing thought that won’t die: Kiss me again, kiss me again, kiss me again!

     I bought a nightdress from a local thrift store a few days ago. Green and white with little flowers, brown buttons, long and granny-ish. But those are the type of clothes I enjoy. I was excited. I sent him a photo.

     “It fits your waist very nicely.”

     That’s what he said. Exactly. Verbatim. And just like that, I was pretty again. Pretty waist, pretty girl. Not fat, not grotesque. He said so, so it must be true. But not pretty enough to hold anymore. Not enough to keep.

     He knows I still like him. But not how much. He knows that he’s my muse. That I sketch him, paint him, recreate him like I'm building a cathedral for my lord. He knows I miss him. He knows he’s still the axis of my life. But he doesn’t know about the rest.

     He doesn't know I press a paperclip against my lip, to pretend his piercings are digging into my skin again. He doesn’t know his old shirt lives on my bed, despite the scent of his detergent being long gone. He doesn’t know I call the stuffed animal I rut against at night by his name.

     Disgusting. Filthy. A lunatic cliché. Funny, isn’t it? All the other disasters in my life, the rot, the maggots, the walls of this cursed house, and THIS is what makes me weep. A boy. Just a boy. Mary-Kate, the pathetic normie teenage girl, drowning in romance novels she'll never relate to.

     He talks about his boyfriend. Whines about him, praises him, gushes about him. One second the guy’s an annoyance, the next he’s a miracle. I hate that conformist. I hate his stupid texts, his sticky little claws always tugging for attention. I hate that my love is in his hands now.

     And yet, how cruel am I to judge? Wasn’t I worse? Wasn’t I needier, louder, more suffocating? Yes. Yes, I was!

     But he liked it, and he was MINE.