#59

Saturday, December 21, 2014


Here.

I don't know where to start with this. I want to apologize but I'm afraid anything I say will sound shallow and insincere. Maybe if I explain where I've been at for the last year, an apology will carry a little more weight. So here goes, I guess...

The fact that the two of you started dating hurt me in so many different ways and for so many different reasons - some of which I'm still realizing (or allowing myself to admit to myself - more on that later). It hurt for all the personal reasons you'd expect - pride, ego, selfishness, loss, depression, etc. - but it also hurt because you were specifically dating him. I just didn't get it, and I knew you could do better (and not because he's going nowhere, but because I knew you could find someone who would love you for you - and I swear to God, I mean someone other than me). If it would have been anyone else, it would have hurt, yes, but it would've been tolerable. He was the worst person you could have picked, because not only did I know you could do better, I was honestly worried about you getting hurt by him because I know who he is. Shitty thing was, I couldn't say any of that at the time because it would've seemed like it was coming out of jealousy or because I was trying to break you guys up... which would've been part of it, if I'm honest, but there were good intentions behind it too - because despite everything, I never stopped seeing you as a friend (no matter what else I might want), and because of that I never wanted to see you get hurt.

These conflicting emotions were part of it, too. The fact that I was both afraid of seeing you get hurt by him and that I want to be with you myself really fucked with my head. I never knew which impulse was real, and would go back and forth trying to figure out how I really felt instead of accepting that I could be selfish and still worry about your well-being. On top of that, I'd been lying to myself for so long about my feelings towards you (months, maybe years) that I started being unable to trust myself about anything. I'd lie to myself and try to interpret things as you being interested in me, then lie to myself and tell myself I was okay with just being friends in order to avoid getting my hopes up. When you got back from Africa, I really had to hide my feelings from myself, because I felt so raw that to honestly engage them at all would cause me to immediately break down. When I got out of treatment, I told myself I was okay with the two of you dating because I thought it was the right thing to do, even though I was anything but okay with it. I also wanted to hang around even though it hurt like crazy... and I suppose I assumed you knew it was hurting me like crazy, and when you didn't read my mind and acknowledge that, it made me more upset.

Look, the point of all this is that I was confused, scared, and in so much pain that I didn't know how to deal with it. So I just turned it into anger. I let myself live in my rage, and eventually I turned it outward on the two of you because I wanted to hurt you as much as I was hurting. I blamed both of you for the way I felt, for my confusion and fear, and I also wanted you to know how much pain I was in. So, I said the most violent, hurtful, intimidating, mean, threatening things I could think of. I wanted you to hurt, to be afraid, to be confused, because that's all I felt - and rather than admitting that I was allowing you two to affect my life way more than I should have, rather than being honest with you, me, him, everyone, I lashed out. I think I wanted to make you hate me as much as I hated myself. It was also part of an attempt to push you away from me by acting as horribly as I possibly could. I've spent the last year pushing away everyone who cares about me, and with you I was afraid that if I didn't absolutely burn that bridge, it wouldn't be enough to keep you away from me.

Fuck, I'm rambling now more than usual, and I don't have any idea what else I wanted to say. I don't know if any of this makes any sense, or if it just makes me seem crazier. So, for what it's worth... I'm sorry, Sif. I'm sorry for hurting you, for scaring you, for blaming you, for being dishonest with you, for manipulating situations to fit my own ends, for making you worry, for trying to break up your relationship, for being weird and bitter and angry and selfish and generally a pile of shit. I'm sorry. Truly, deeply, gutwrenchingly sorry. And if that's not enough, if you want nothing to do with me, I get it. Really, I do. And please, please remember two things: (1) you are absolutely deserving of love, and (2) you are fucking awesome.

All right, that's it.

Love, always,
Ben

#58

Monday, December 22, 2014


I wrote you a letter
Because I had too much to say for a poem
But now I'm afraid that even an epic
Wouldn't say enough

"i drew a blank
and i think
it may be
the best thing
i've ever drawn"
~Saul Williams

#57

Saturday, December 21, 2014


I won't gloat
I won't say I told you so
Because I never wanted him to hurt you in the first place
And while I'm relieved it's finally over
I'm not glad that I was right

And yeah, your light is pretty fucking radiant
Don't worry
You won't lose it over this