goodbye to a ghost
i used to find comfort in the naive, optimistic sentiments others seemed to hold whenever they had gone through heartbreak, loss, or abandonment. i’d read countless letters about others wanting to wait for their lost love forever, to wait for the right person, since it just so happened to be the wrong time; i’d read countless letters about others hoping their past love would one day miss them, would one day realize what they’d lost; i’d read countless letters about a peaceful, blissful acceptance of loss, hoping that the person no longer in their life, would nonetheless feel the love they had given, and be comforted by it even in their complete absence.
i find none of these sentiments comforting anymore, and i do not hold even the slightest hope of a happier outcome. i would not even want what i had once strongly hoped for. in these new days, i find a sense of bitterness, anger and distance. this alone i find comforting, because it means i no longer love you. more than that, it means i do not wish for some lukewarm resolution that would involve pursuing you as a friend or making amends. i have recognized your place in my life as a ghost of past hurt, having vividly taught me what might happen when you so fully let someone so cruel into your heart. what happens when you are abandoned, made to feel worthless and deserving of solitude. i was not even worth a goodbye, and i had finally begun to make sense of why; people only bid farewell to those that had mattered to them.
you were not the right person at the wrong time, you were not the one meant for me, and you were not the one that had gotten away. i see reality now, unobscured by glasses tinted rose. with my eyes, i see only the mundane, only the cruelty of the ordinary, and i see how painfully normal all of it was. i do not know how long it may take to heal from the scars of this; even now, i wonder if when i do not perform up to the expectations of others, if i simply deserve to be left behind and forgotten, never to be spoken of again, simply some monster for others to stay away from.
goodbye, the love of my past life. though you would have never written me such a farewell, you were at once someone important to me. for better or worse, i do not forget the love others have showed me. it is this persistent belief in the good of others which allows me to feel strength from even the care of years’ past; conversely, it is what hurts me even now as i know i did not mean even half or a quarter as much as you meant to me. i hope the paths we cross never intertwine again, not because i would attempt to once more pursue you, but because you wound up as nothing more than the most bitter lesson for me to learn, and that is all you will remain.