If only you cared.

Current feelings/thought process regarding an ex.

If you really cared you'd show it. Your apologies wouldn't be early morning phone calls after one too many shots of cheap brandy you picked up from the liquor store 5 miles from your house. The apologizes wouldn't be masked with misogynistic comments that the other boys in your truck encouraged you to make. If you really cared I wouldn't be able to recite how every 15 minute call would proceed. I wouldn't be able to tell you how every one would end. With text messages where so much was left to be desired but just enough was said.  

 

If you really cared you'd know how much I wanted to make it work. How I fell in love with all the simple things you did. From resting your head on my thighs to the way you snore when you hold me in your arms at night. You'd know how much I cared if you had taken the time to realize that I once hated these things, but when it was you I fell in love with the comfort you would provide by just being comfortable yourself. Because it was you. It was always you. Your laugh and your natural smile. Not the one you would force when talking about topics you wish you weren't involved in, but would needlessly act out with insincere laughs and snickers because it was your boys who brought up each meaningless girl and insignificant deal you had made the week prior. I fell in love with the smile you'd make late at night when we would lay down on your small mattress on the floor and start talking about the little details of the day the other one might have missed. The smile that would start at your lips and spread to your eyes as you laid on my lap and drifted to sleep at your friends house that once smelled like burning ganja but now only smells of ashes. 

 

I noticed because I cared. I knew your ticks. How if I called you by your name and not anyone of the numerous pet names I gave you, the sparkle would drain from your eyes and run into a sour note that started at the tip of your tongue, made its way into my heart, and would finally finish at the end of my eyelashes. I noticed how your cheekbones would lower ever so slightly when you were disappointed in something that's happened the moment prior. 

 

I knew to show you that I really did care. Because words don't mean anything when they've been said before by a person that has hurt you. I knew I couldn't rebuild the bridge that was previously burned by someone who didn't recognize your worth. But I knew that you'd be willing to let me build a raft so I could get to the other side of all the pain and start over on that side of the river. I would have been willing, I just wish you would've let me.

 

But you didn't, because in the end you never cared. You became the people that hurt you and reenacted every painful outcome of what they did unto you, onto me. I let you, not because I was living in beautiful ignorance of the psychology of your mind that resembles ivy, beautiful but twisted all at once. But because I was once that person who lived up to the meaning of "hurt people, hurt people." And someone, for some reason, saw my hurt and decided to care. I cared because in every rose garden there are thorns, but that doesn't diminish the view. I cared because you are like an unrefined diamond, you are worth so much but not everyone can see it through your scratches and sharp edges. I decided to care now because, one day, when you are perfect and everyone can see your value, I wanted you to know that it's been there this entire time and I saw it before the edges were filled and the scratches buffed.

 

I care because I love you. But sometimes the worst things in life are the one sided actions we take, like falling in love with someone who cannot love us back with all our thorns and scratches. 

 

I do not blame you, and I hope one day I can say there's no resentment. Because as I'm working through the garden of emotions you've planted inside me, I feel resentment that you rooted these feelings inside of me but did not care enough to nurture them. Planted by a hurt man, rooted to the very essence of my being, and nourished only on the one sided love I provided. What should have I expected?

 

I hope one day, when you find someone you truly love, you can show them that you are capable of caring. I hope that she can clear the ivy growing between your neuro-receptors and let a new species of thorn-less roses grow in between the tangled mess that once resided there. That she can be the pearls to your diamonds, and the rain for your garden when your hands get tired. I pray that this girl will be your boat to get where the burned bridges could never have taken you, and you anchor yourself onto her. I hope all these things for you because I care, and hopefully, one day, you can finally care enough for yourself to live out all the wonderful possibilities I could've once introduced you to. 

Author's Note

if you find any grammatical errors please let me know. Thank you.