It's a bleak question, I know, showcasing my sadder outlook. Apologies for spilling my blood on the pages of my online journal again. I hope you'll stay. Or maybe I don't…it is a little embarrassing to write this. Self-proclaimed lover writing a think-piece on my lack of love. It's sad. It's pathetic. Am I? God! I don't know!
I give so much of myself, pieces of my soul snapped off to place in someone else's hands, but I don't receive even a crumb of the same. Repeatedly. Admittedly, I know the answer: I should give up on the prospect. Romance circles the drain, leaving the dregs of desperation that cling to the edges of it in the basin. At the center, it was empty. Rotted out to nothing. It might be better in the sink, instead of in my chest where it might spread. I don't want to rot from the inside out, but I feel it already.
For eight months, I begged for a man to pay attention to me until it destroyed us both. Or maybe just me; he seems fine now. I regret letting it drag on for so long, the dirty trails of my guts covering every path I took to save what was already done. Am I doing the same thing now? Probably not, but what if? It gnaws at me that this feeling reminds me so much of him, of back then, of being on my knees. I just picked off the scabs from last time, so now they're bleeding down my shins. I'll get it all over your floor if I were to fall here to beg you too. Do you want that?
Not you, reader, unless it is you. Just the general collective "you" of those I try to love. If you think I love you, then, well…if the shoe fits. I guess examine this with me.
I've resigned myself to benefiting off brand new friendships in the ways of skin. Inviting strangers into my bed to make me feel just a little like loved. A little like important. A little like anything. Before, the idea of meeting up with someone I met on an app excited me like that 18-year-old college freshman I used to be the first time I made an account on one. Now, it's a faded out feeling like the memories of honeymoon phases and kisses colored in emotion. I miss being loved here and now and presently. I miss you, the collective "you" of those I try to love.
It's not fair! I try so hard, give so much! Do you see? Do you just not care? Or is this normal for you, somehow? What about reciprocity? What about me? Do I get to take a little? Get to demand for your attention and presence like you get mine? But you don't demand me to do a thing. I do it all of my own volition. Like a fucking puppy, eager to please and trailing after an unresponsive owner. You own me, did you know that? Own my entire heart that's capable of belonging to another. It isn't much anymore, I'll say, but it's enough for you to notice.
I throw myself into my work. I scrub dishes until my knuckles bleed and sweep floors until my back gives out. My coworkers will thank me with easy, carefree praise. Do they know this is all I am? I'm a hard worker. I'm a hard lover. I'm a hard person to be. Does that make me hard to love? It must, given the repetitive nature of my relationships. They give out like my back and bleed out into the soapy water with me. There's nothing here to care for anymore. I'm alone again. Abandoned for somewhere greener and someone easier.
I'm sorry for my anger. I'm sorry for my sorrow. I'm sorry for my longing. I'm sorry for this.
But I'm so fucking tired. Exhausted by the big lot of nothing on my plate. Yours seems too full, overflowing…are you going to eat that? All of it? Greedy fingers and hungry mouths. I'm starving out here where the ghosts cling close, reminders of my past. Reminders of something not so distant anymore. Maybe I missed it — what I had — so much that it cycled back around to me again. I thought I missed the good parts, but maybe the universe is telling some sick joke I'm not in on yet. Explain it to me like I'm stupid because I just might be.
I wonder if you'll read this, any of the collective "you" I try to love. Maybe. Probably not.
Signing off, until next diary entry,
Ri