Why I told You I wanted to be with You

Words on being a troubled woman, when he said he loved me and didn’t mean it & impulsive 3am purchases.

I caught myself digging a hole in my backyard. It was furious and agitated, and it was 3am. It was a full moon; my body was stuck in a strange spell. Suddenly, I felt my spine crack. It was the moonlight on my skin, feeling either like a soft kiss or a smack. Sometimes I couldn’t tell the difference, but it made me jump and I realised.

I didn’t know what I was digging for. Maybe I just wanted to bury myself again. I lit a cigarette and thought about how I kept getting there all the time. Maybe someday it would stick. Maybe one day the pain will be suffocated, and I’ll transcend into this human being made of wind and light and serenity. But for now, I’m just a woman in grief who wants the pain to be over.

That’s why I told you not once or twice, but three times, that I wanted to be with you. And you kissed me, not once or twice, but three times, and then said you couldn’t do it.

I got tired of haunting my own house and drawing blood from the walls. Sometimes I even thought I heard my own screams whispering back to me in between the morning breeze. So I went out the night before I dug a hole in my backyard: 4^th June.

I met men. They were interested, but they weren’t you.

A guy who was on acid showed me his phone upside down; asked if I liked the wallpaper. It was terrible. I paused and said it looked great.

I walked around the festival in full circle twice to try to find the bathrooms. I wasn’t drunk, I just wasn’t paying attention.

Met my ex’s brother. He was pretty high. “Got the same almost 6-year old iPhone with the cracked screen?” “Are you still doing picture editing?” “Do you still stare in the distance blankly for the first three hours of the day?” Yes, yes and yes. “You look really great!” he said, three times during this entire conversation. I didn’t understand him. I felt f*****g terrible.

I didn’t know what I was hoping for when I told you. Maybe I just wanted you to let me love you.

On Saturday, 3^rd June: I met with a friend. I lit a cigarette and started telling him about how I once quit smoking last summer. “Yeah? How’s that working out for you?” he said sarcastically. Really great, thank you.

I started smoking again the night I met you.

4^th June 08:02am, I wrote in my journal: “Maybe my two-month depressive spell is finally over.” I do believe that life is incredibly ironic.

Sitting in my half dug-out hole, I found in my pocket a crumpled to-do list which I had written just an hour or two before I sat out there:

·      Bake a cake

·      Learn how to crochet

·      Watch a German movie

·      Learn German

·      Sign up to an art class

·      Run 20k steps

·      Buy acid

Do you remember when you told me you loved me? Not once, twice, but three times. Because I do… Honey, what does love mean to you?

I checked my emails; found some receipts for crochet patterns, a Duolingo subscription and a €490 art class I signed up for. Checked Telegram on my phone. Apparently, I had messaged on old friend of mine I hadn’t spoken to in over a year, asking if he had what we had that one time we went camping.

My therapist told me to start keeping track in a notebook of any intense thoughts and feelings. I think it helped. Maybe. But sometimes I just think about how you told me how happy you were to have met someone like me, and I feel like I couldn’t breathe quite right. I don’t blame you. There’s nothing to blame you for, really. I think I blame myself for feeling the way I do. But for now, I’m really angry. At you, and the world.

I thought I heard voices in the kitchen. I got up from my sad hole and looked through the window. It was just the German movie I was watching before I went out there. There was a mess on the kitchen counter. I was in the middle of making a cake before I went outside. Right, 3am �" it was past midnight. Guess what? It was June 5^th then; my birthday.

The unsightliness of my backyard, the chaos in the kitchen, the mess on my phone �" how do I put everything back together? After this; after you. If I buried my body there and then, would I be happy? And maybe then I would stop trying to make it in the movie business. Maybe I should just move far, far away, adopt a few more cats, and open a record store.

I think I left my heart between our cars that April evening. It was 3am.

I wondered if you’d say happy birthday to me. I mean, you did say I was one of the most important people in your life �" always. I hoped you would. I prayed it was you every time my phone buzzed.

     Edit: He didn’t.

Here’s to 27. Happy f*****g birthday to me.

Author's Note

Thank you for reading <3. This is a little taster of what to expect from the Fever-Dream Rambles which can be found on my Substack: https://enterroom23.substack.com/. I’ll be writing there weekly. Sending you all a hug xo

Reviews

[emmajoygreen]

This is almost a self-made confessional, words flowing from a broken heart and troubled thoughts. I can feel the pain as your actions and thoughts co-exist, second by second. Each exposure like a scourge, each exposure intended, perhaps, as a Linus blanket. Yours is a painful read, set superbly: your pain, memories, bewilderment and desertion hit home. You deserved and deserve peace. .

[willweb]

It definitely is a ramble but all of the pieces fit. The security of the 3 am hole is something I can feel, each thought gathers its pre thought thoughts and tales them along with it. I liked this. I felt I was seeing something I wasn't supposed to be seeing.