If I Lived Till I Was a Hundred and Two

What if, one day, you don't love me any more?

I'd always assumed that you always would, but what if one day...you're talking with some people, and somebody brings up first loves, old girlfriends, heart-breaking bitches. And you think of me, and snort. But it feels kind of hollow, like it's maybe not true anymore and you just did it automatically out of habit. So you stop to think, and you realize that it's not true. You realize you don't love me anymore. And you breathe a sigh of relief. You're free of me.

I wonder if I will ever be free of you. And I'm scared I won't be, and I know that sounds dramatic but I'm scared it might be true because I'm not so sure it was ever really love that tied me to you. It was something sicker, something darker, with a cold, sinister grip. Something that could masquerade as love quite nicely but in the end is actually some kind of monster.

Need?

I'm not sure. It's more complicated than that. But in any case, I don't think I can live without you. I've been doing it for now because I'd always just assumed that one day you would come skipping back into my life, but now it's occurring to me that you....most likely...will not. And not because of some extenuating, Fate-y circumstance. Because you absolutely no longer have any desire to.

I am not sure what to do with this information. So I panic.

You have to love me. You can't not love me. You said you would always love me, and I know that that's the biggest line of bullshit in the relationship world, but I don't care because I've banked an alarming amount of my self-concept on that promise. I have never not believed that. I have to believe that. It has to be true because if it is ever not true then I'm not sure I can function. I have lived on that love, for a long time. That gritty, sweaty, utterly soul-crushing, black box, life-changing, back of your heart, back of your mind, never. never. ever. forget you love has been the reason I survived so much shit. I relied on that to get me through those first lonely, distant months in San Francisco, the morning-after suicide attempt last summer, countless bad dreams, and a troubling amount of people telling me, in so many words, that I was worthless and quite unnecessary to their lives. Because somebody had once given me worth. And I believed in what you saw. You are the only person who has ever really loved me. I mean, the only one who's ever loved me, all the teeth and claws and sadism included. That love gave me life.

If you don't love me...what am I? What am I without your love?

And, if you don't love me, no one will love me. Ever.

(How have I managed to not deal with this for this long?)

My heart, my mind, can't even accept this. I can't even process this any more. I don't know. I'm just pushing it away. Fuck.

Some nights the memory of you is the only thing that gets me to sleep. What a sad, sorry girl I am. I miss you. Something in me calls to something in you, but I feel guilty because I know it's not love, not love the way it should be. But you know what? Maybe I do love you a little, maybe I do care about you in some way. I love you enough to leave you alone. Sweet boy. I just don't want to ever hurt you ever again.

______________
EDIT
From the Chinese takeout I got later that night:



Classic, right? Katelin thought it was quite ironic; I, of course, was just depressed. Of all the fucking fortune cookies in the world...