Crazy/Human.

“Are you crazy?”

It’s a question that reverberates inside my skull. Never formed into words, I can feel it hovering over me, sure as I am of the thoughts of my friends if I ever spoke of how I feel. Because surely I must be crazy, to curl up in bed at night and still have a heart filled with you. You were an asshole, a dick, a real bastard. You were poison. Yet how can I go on without you now?

They would tell me of all that you did, hoping to remind me of your sins and force me to move on. I do not need reminding. I know your faults better than anyone, though I was the only one who could forgive them. You were too proud, too vain and narcissistic; too busy competing with everyone to be their friend. You wielded words like a weapon and you did not care if you cut those close to you down - even me.

And yet…

We could talk endlessly, on the phone for hours and hours. I could share every trivial aspect of my day because you wanted to be a part of it. You listened to my concerns and you comforted me. You always made me laugh. You told me stories of your life, sad stories that pulled at my heart. You needed me as much as I needed you, and that is why I loved you so much. You made me feel secure where I had felt insecure for years. You were a missing piece of me clicking into place.

I could not keep you.

You hurt my friends, my best friends, and in doing so tore me in two. How could I leave you, when I had sworn to help heal you? I could not break my promise; I could not be another in your life who had let you down. Yet staying cut me deeper every day. I could not choose you over those I’d cared about for so long, and to be with you meant losing all others, for you infected me from the inside out. You brought out the worst version of me. Perhaps it is easy for my friends to label you the enemy, but I know in my soul that the only person responsible for damaging my friendships was me.

I tried so, so hard to make you better. I tried harder than anything.

I had to let you go.

I could have forgiven you if your only transgressions were against myself, if I was the only one you hurt. You could have manipulated my feelings again and again and I would have worked through each time. But I loved others as much as I loved you, and I could not allow you to cause them misery.
Will you ever realise how much my decision agonsied me? You probably curse me for abandoning you. You probably call me a bitch and a traitor. You do not know that it burns me every day to think of how I left you.

You still have a part of me with you. There is an empty place inside of me that will take years to fill. I miss you every day – when I come home and there is no-one to text, when one of our private jokes comes up and there is no-one to say it to. We had so many things planned that we will never do together. Being disconnected from your life, not knowing what you’re doing or where you’re going, has left me feeling adrift. All I have to do is press a few buttons to reach out to you, yet the distance between us is a gaping chasm. I will always think of you, wonder about you, and hope that you’re ok.

“Are you crazy?”

You were an asshole, a dick, a real bastard. You were poison. I want you back anyway.

I don’t think that makes me crazy.

I think it makes me human.