You're easier to read than I thought

Everyone thinks they have you figured out, but I know what you're really like.

You play dumb, but you're ridiculously smart and easy to charm. 

You have everyone fooled into thinking that you're fun and easygoing, but I know how obsessive you are in maintaining this persona. How hard you are on yourself to the point of hatred because you're too stubborn to work on being comfortable with who you actually are. How obsessed you are. Pretending to be cool and collected when in reality, you're extremely anxious. That's fine. It's normal to have a hard time trusting new people, to play it safe, but being strategic to the point of deflection and victim complex is nothing short of depressing. You make yourself hard to love.

It's not that you're incapable of love. You're incapable of giving it to anyone else but yourself. You struggle to connect deeply with other people solely out of selfish reason. You keep everyone at a distance, so that when things don't turn out as expected you won't feel as horrible as anticipated. The only people you maintain relationships with are people who are just as underdeveloped as you and into only surface-level as you portray just to fill the void of loneliness just enough to keep you satisfied. Logical to the point of lacking empathy. Playing safe at the cost of others' dismay.

Every now and then I had hoped that you were as good as the person I told everyone you were. When everyone, even people you assume are your friends, said you were nothing but someone who didn't care, unreliable, emotionless. I still vouched for you. Now that I look back, even after a month of radio silence and your inevitable return, I realized you kept me around because you wanted to be someone like me. The me that I worked so hard to become, drained in 12 months time. Did I make you feel less lonely? I wish you did the same for me, but even when I tried to be your friend it was nothing but the emptiness of your own agenda while I was stuck in some optimistic disillusionment.

I'm no Messiah, but I thought I could sway your perspective at least a bit. It felt like you were taking your time to kill me with blanks on rotation and I kept waiting and hoping you'd finally pull the trigger until I could finally realize that none of it was real. Maybe you just associated with me on a superficial level, or because you made me cry once and your guilty conscience needed clearing, or because you needed a way out. Why couldn't you just kill me on contact?

Do you feel better now? Do you feel free and powerful now?

How good will you feel down the line when you're all alone with nothing but yourself? When you're all alone with your cold self. Probably fine.

In the past, I'd come home covered in bruises and hurt to the point of death, but no pain has bothered me like this one. How easy it is to try your best to be something, just for you to be nothing.

You take and take only the things you want and always give less in order to protect yourself. Self-preserving to the point of turning the possibility of light into your life. You're always so prepared for things to go wrong that you don't even enjoy the beauty of life as it passes right by you.

Men should be strong, protective, and grounded. You think masculinity is leeway. You think control is under-giving and committing to no one.

I don't even know you that well. It's all intuitive, but I guarantee you that everything I've said so far is true. I'll even bet on it. What you really want is something beautiful. You like love and you have an idea of what it should be floating around in the back of your head. You yearn for it and you're scared you'll never get it even when it's right in front of you. You're going to do nothing but miss it. That's why you drown yourself in things that don't satisfy you, because you already know the dissatisfaction it'll bring.

You're easier to read than I thought. In reality, how you long for a beautiful and lifelong connection. How you wish romance and emotionality came natural to you. How sweet you can be, until you get scared and reclusive again, but not everyone has a hill to die on for you. Healing is inevitable once you learn to open your heart and communicate the way you truly, deeply like. Loving is easy if you let it be. 

Photo @nikaklinecjewellery