I’ve been struggling to be inspired today, but this Tumblr blog post got something turning in my head. Let’s see where it goes!
Prompt: She means nothing to me.
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She means nothing to me – that woman in the picture.
Or at least that’s what I’m trying to convince myself.
That woman was someone that used to love me. That woman was someone that used to make me laugh. That woman used to share dreams of spending the rest of her life at my side, making waves and taking names. We were going to be unstoppable. Forever young, forever fun. That was the plan.
Until she amended the plan; “I need to find more, Claire,” she whispered to me. It was in the wee hours of the morning, past out drunk on the sofa of close friend’s house. The party hadn’t lived up to the expectations of the hype, and it left that woman of mine whimpering for more. I thought she meant more drinks, more shots, more songs, more mistakes, and more sex. I thought she was just feeling antsy. She wasn’t.
She was feeling something else, something I still don’t fully understand, and I suffer as the result of her complex existence.
That woman in the picture left before I woke up, she left before the world woke up. Always one step ahead, that woman.
I can’t blame her. I loved her because she was unique, she was complicated, she was something and everything all at once. When I held her in my arms after a long night at the bar, I would tell her all the things I thought I wanted in life before I met her. How I wanted a nice house, a nice car, a sugar daddy husband, and an affair with the pool boy. I rattled on about how I needed more antics in my life than I need true love – that was the person I used to think I’d become as I aged. I always told her how she much she changed me, how much she gave to me…
I made sure she knew how she made me crave adventure, how she made me consider seeing the world for what its temporary beauty rather than its permanent benefits, and how she made me want things I couldn’t want before I saw her face. That woman came in, claiming that the world isn’t flat anymore.
She helped me realize to that I had more than one dimension. I wasn’t just a straight girl looking for a straight guy looking for another boy with less morals in need of a great time. That woman in that picture told me that the only person who knows me is me, and somehow she was ironically wrong. The only person that knows me is me, but she knew me before I did.
And I hate her now for the privilege.
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She means nothing to me – that woman smiling in the background of my screen saver.
The way she photobombed every selfie I ever took was glorious. I may never know why she loved me; “Andrea, you gave me a life I didn’t know existed,” but she thought I was some sort of godsend. She smiled at me as if I showed up one day in a tiny thrift shop specifically to take her heart away so that she could replace it with the world. I never meant for those things to happen, and I certainly never meant to fall in or out of love with her either.
But that’s how the story goes. I don’t want to be with anyone forever, even when I think I do – I don’t. She tricked me in a sneaky little romantic way into believing that I had found a purpose. We worked odd jobs, lived in basements, and crashed at everyone else’s house after long nights partying. If we ever had a home it would have been in each other’s arms, sometimes wrapped up in one another on the cold, wet streets in the middle of the night. No other couple was as devoted nor as manic about their love as we were, I’m willing to bet some promiscuous favors on it.
Of course, I’m probably just saying that because I’d do it anyway. There’s so little that I wouldn’t be willing to try. It just so happens, for that matter, that I wanted to taste heartbreak when I told her that I needed to find something. The existential something. Is something there or is it not? I have no idea what it is I’m looking to fill the void in my heart – but eventually the new fad burns up like rolling paper in a bonfire. Whatever interests I take, I take them with a grain of salt and a time bomb.
The girl in my background – delete – she is just a woman that should have never loved me. I hate her for loving me.
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