Arshi: Feel

It has become harder to write you off. As the years go by, the intensity of emotions should change. Slowly ebb. But seeing you every time is a punch to my gut, as strong as it was the first time, and knocks the wind out of me.

I guess it is history. In fact, I doubt you even remember how it was to kiss me. Whisper drunkenly in my ear, telling me you were in love with me. Telling me I should have waited, telling me you never thought you were good enough. Ruing the fact that I moved on, without giving you a chance to "make something of yourself." I wish you had remembered this when we were sober. I wish you had told me you meant it. I would have waited- as long as it took, forever. Because at least then, I wouldn't feel this burning inside. As if my heart has decided to drop into my stomach and stay there. Unavailable, unfeeling. Except for the longing to just throw myself into your arms, everything else be damned. My wedding. Our friendship. Propriety. I wish the world was that easy. But I never thought you remembered. Or meant it. I thought, and still do, that I was one of the many. Like that night when you held me close and danced with me. When we kissed for the first time. You tasted of whiskey, I remember clearly through the drunken haze. The way your lips felt. The thought makes my heart lurch and my head spin even today, six years after that night.

As hard as it is to write this, I need to. I need to get you out of my system, once and for all. I thought you were out, but realised this weekend how foolish and powerless I was! Not seeing you for three years made it easy for me, to move on and to imagine my life without the hurricane you toss my heart into. Every time. You are like a drug, and it makes me lose control. Of my life, of my emotions. How terrified I am that you will one day find out what I have been thinking all these years. I just saw a message from you, on a whatsapp group, and it made me smile. Your name makes me smile. And then it pushes me into a deep abyss of darkness, where I lose all hope.

I know I am not yours anymore. I doubt I ever was. Maybe I am overthinking. I am definitely overthinking. But I cannot stop thinking about you. It has been more than two days, and you are still stuck in my head. I worry incessantly about what you think of me. I replay endlessly the look in your eyes when you looked at me. I rewind all our conversations again and again, trying to hunt for a tiny clue to your feelings, or mine. But how useless it all is. You have wrapped me up in yourself again. In that familiar smile, which I will always argue was better with that broken tooth. Of that husky voice that has teased, tormented and angered me for years and years. The jokes that make me laugh endlessly, until tears stream down the side of my face. You were always good at that, weren't you? Tears of joy, tears of sadness. Your one word, one sentence, one look would set me off. Into peals of laughter. Or a waterfall of tears. Uncontrollable.

That is what it is I think. You make me lose control. In myself, in my feelings, in my carefully constructed plans. You arrive like a tornado and destroy everything I hold dear, everything that keeps me sane. I wish I could show you this, but I know what you will say. I waver between thinking I am special to you, to being one of many. There have been relationships, I know. Very serious ones. In your life, as in mine. But then why did you drunkenly call me when you were with someone else, telling me you wanted to marry me? Why did I call you when I was with someone else, throwing in your face that you were nothing but a fling?

I don't know what you wanted. What you expected. Every time I move on, or I think I have, there you are. Bursting into my life. With your familiarity. With that stupid Davidoff perfume. With that terrible beard and that stupid smirk. With that incredibly warm hug. And then with that awfully cold behaviour which leaves me out as soon as you say something even remotely intimate. We go from friends to best friends to exes to just acquaintances in one conversation. And it messes me up. I want you to tell me what you feel, truthfully. When we are both sober. That is all I need, and I will go my way. But I won't believe you if you say "you are just another girl I could have made out with", and then a few months later tell me you never thought you were good enough for me. Mercurial. That is what you are. I just want to know where I stand. Yes, I know I am bracing myself for the most terrible rejection, but what is new in that? We have rejected each other countless times, what is one more?

What do I do? How do I not judge myself? I feel torn between this storm you have cast me into, and my responsibilities. You are a drug, and this is just hormones. Then why do I want to cry every time I realise we will never be together anymore, ever? I am with someone else. Who is so much better for me. But why can't I even have a normal conversation with him since I met you?

I am going insane. Certifiably insane. And once again, as always, it is because of you. This infatuation needs to go. I need to get you out of my system. NOW. I know it was years ago, and I know you have close friendships with all of your exes except me.(can I even be called an ex-girlfriend? We were never even properly together!) I HATE YOU. I hate the fact that I am sitting here thinking of you when I have what everyone wants. An incredible relationship. A selfless partner. WHY AM I THINKING OF YOU?!

I f**king hate you.

And you know what the joke is? I know for a fact that you dont feel even 1% of what I do. And still, like an idiot, I cling to the past. I need to let it go. And the only way to do it is to hate you.

I have been hating you for three years, and have let you go. And then you have no right to overturn that hate, to destroy its basis, and wash away everything I have worked so hard so far for.

I will keep hating you.

And the joke is on me, because despite all this, I still love you.

Lots of love!

xx