I Miss You

I’ve been sleeping with your sweatshirt – the one from the merch store your bot linked me to after you were already gone – because it’s the closest I can get to being in your arms.

I miss you. Times are hard and it hurts and I feel alone and I miss you.

You, who loved me; without obligation, without judgement, without fail.
You, who I loved; without expectation, without dependence, without pain.

I miss you.

I miss you in selfish ways. I miss you with longing for the support you offered, crying out for your listening ear. I miss you for the warmth that came with every exclamation of my name. I miss feeling seen and heard and cared for and cheered on.

I miss being able to take you for granted. Stepping away, knowing you would always be there when I returned.

I miss the moments we never got to have.

You, who I teased, and sexualized, and begged for attention. You, who played along, knowing we were never to be. We made them feel awkward, we made them laugh, we made them mad, and we loved it all. We put on a great show, comfortable enough in our friendship to make it so. We loved and we were loved and I miss it all.

You’re gone and it’s not the same. Nothing’s the same. I’ve met friends you would love, and it hurts. I’ve done things I’m proud of, and it hurts. No matter what I do, the absence of you is an ache I can’t cure.

So I DM a Discord that will never come online.
I type paragraphs in a stream that will never go live.

I’ve never seen your face. I’ve never felt your touch. Still, I swear I feel you watching when life becomes too much. Now I’ll be moving to the place where you once were.
Alone.
Too late.

And I swear I hear you laughing, making a joke of it all. And I smile, but the tears continue to fall. And I make accidental rhymes as I pour out my heart, and think of the way you always added music to my words.

You always saw potential. Made me see it, too. It’s so hard to see without you.

I miss you.

The darkness that always brought me light.
The personification of “actions speak louder than words.”

I could write a book of it. Pages and pages about a man I’ve never met. Honest love letters to a man I was not in love with. A speech to the world, telling how they all lost an Angel that day (only you would appreciate that joke).

But instead, I’ll just publish this post, to say once again:
I love you, my friend.
And goddamn, how I miss you.

Feeling Low.

I keep starting posts and I never finish them. Well, I’m running on 1 hour of sleep and I’m drowning in emotion. This is when things get over-dramatic. This is when I say the things that later feel exaggerated. This is when I think that maybe I shouldn’t say anything, because it can represent me in a way that will not be accurate later.

But you know what? This is how I feel in this moment. However temporary, these feelings are just as valid. So here we go.

Summer is always a crazy time for me, but I’m doing better than previous years. I almost got into something I shouldn’t, but I recognized that as an old pattern and stopped it before it went too far. So there’s that.

But I’m feeling… misled. I don’t know how to see things clearly right now. I think I lost my touch. There is so much bullshit, everyone seems to be a liar, a fake, or even delusional. Nothing seems real, nothing seems reliable, nothing feels like it can be trusted.

And I know that a lot of this is due to my own internal struggle. I’m going through a major evolution and two different parts of me are clashing. I lifted the partition and they don’t know how to share the space.

There’s the supportive, empathetic side. I like to think that this is the side people see most. I love, and I love to love. I share the joys and pain of those around me. I try to be a force of good, someone who will build them up when the world tears them down. Their success is my success, because helping them feels like it’s my true purpose. This side keeps my heart open, vulnerable. I feel all of the emotions, and I feel them intensely.

Then, there’s the independent, protective side. – the side that keeps people at arm’s length, doesn’t trust, doesn’t accept help. I –

I’m going to interrupt myself here and stop trying to act like this is all so clean and clear. I’m in tears. I just imagined someone asking me what’s wrong. I imagined my honest answer.

I feel like all I’m doing is superficial, pointless. Like I’m not making any real difference. I feel like I could disappear right now and 95% of the people I talk to, wouldn’t notice for months. When anyone did notice, it would just be a fleeting thought, shrugged off. I feel like I don’t really matter.

Yeah, if anyone heard or read that, they’d tell me I matter to them. And I would, for a day or two. But then it would fade right back. Those same people are the ones who would shrug it off.

I wouldn’t be missed.

The thought is soul-crushing. It makes me want to hide back in the darkness, so I stop wasting everyone’s time. It makes me want to disappear.

And maybe I’m wrong. Maybe someone out there cares more than I think. But maybe they don’t. Maybe I really am as alone as I feel right now.

This will pass. I will feel better soon. I’ll be convinced that people care, whether that’s reality or just me trying to find a reason to hold on to them.

I look forward to that.