One Step Back.

I believe, at least once in your life, you find someone who you feel connected to like you’ve known them all along. The flicker of a past life lingers in the back of your mind and hope for a future where both of your lives mend together, always keeps you breathing. This is what it feels like to know you. Like you were there when I was ten and playing hide and seek with my friends, you were there to tell me it will be all right when I was twelve and my friend didn’t invite me to a birthday party, you were there to help me take it one step at a time, until the day we finally met… For every moment that has shaped me into who I am today, you were a huge part of it. Even if we didn’t know each other until last year, there was a sense, there was your presence making a way through the walls I’ve built, oh so very quietly. So, when I say you are important to me, know that I mean every word of it.

Life has a way of being cruel to the kindest souls. I have come to a theory that maybe it is a game universe plays. See how long it takes to make someone bitter, hard to understand, and impossible to heal. It’s funny if you look at it this way: you do have the power to defeat the universe, the most powerful force to exist. Only by not letting it meddle with who you are, with whom you’ve chosen to be.

The only thing that ever came close to ruining me was you. The only moment that had me gasping on my bathroom floor was when I realized things might never be the same again. Every day was torture. Every breath took too much of me. There was a split second that made me think that I deserved this. That second passed and yet, I clung to that thought longer than I should have. I wrote a lot because that was the only place where I felt I could be honest, and broken until the day comes when writing isn’t all about you. Although, that day is nowhere near.

This was the game universe chose to play with me. Or at least, that’s what I believe only to take the next step. If you don’t know what is happening to you, how do you find a cure? So, to find a cure from you, I illusioned a wound, a disease. There’s a pinch of regret I feel when writing this… you were my medicine, the antidote. I never thought I would need to survive from you and yet, here we are. Ironic, isn’t it?

I would never hate you, even if I have a list of reasons to. And I would always make an excuse for you. And this might be a bit far-fetched but even after hell and back, I could never regret you being a part of my life. Letting you stay has caused havoc and for the first few days, I knew I was standing right in the middle of the storm, everything was spinning around me and nothing made sense. I think, I never said I needed you before but at that moment, in the middle of a Tuesday afternoon, I needed you… but all that I had was these words, the memories that turn a bit more bittersweet every time I look at them.

Know that running away from it all is something I have considered, even back when our story was only a few chapters in. I couldn’t do it. To be honest, I am glad I didn’t. I am glad I stayed. I have never found enough courage to look at you and not feel like the ground under me is slipping away, to see you smile and not anticipate the times I would be repeating it throughout the day… I never had enough courage to not love you.

But one step towards you is punishing me for the crimes I have never committed, for the “I love you’s” I have never said. So, I think taking a step back would be a wise thing to do in a time like this. Patience is a catalyst when you know what you want, when you know it all comes down to the ‘timing’.

Loving you is the closest I came to ruining myself. A mistake I don't even want to undo if I were given another chance. What do you call this? Foolishness or devotion?