When I first saw you, I thought: “That guy would never like a guy like me.” I would hide my flab under blankets of clothing and you would shine brighter than all the stars in the sky. You were a lion and I was a warthog. I would try to walk through life, unnoticed and with my head hung low. The hate from others ignited me to push and fight for my worth and my life. When you noticed I grew my wings, you caught me in your cage and I wanted to be yours. You stared into my eyes and you could play with my melted heart in your beautiful hands. I was smitten and somehow you cleansed my veins of bad blood. The smallest actions made my smile stuck on repeat and with you, I only breathed in monogamy. You were the other piece to the puzzle that I would hear others talk about. I knew what having “the love of your life” felt like and I never wanted my feet to touch the ground again.

But then I fell. Hard. Yes, we were friends before we dated, but throughout everything, I was identified as the friend. I gave you a lot more than just a friend would. Besides literal things, I gave you satisfaction, I gave you warmth, I gave you commitment, I gave you love, and I gave you me. I wasn’t supposed to be some meal you chewed and spat back out. I used to think “Is he ashamed of me? What’s wrong with me? What can I do to make us better?” But the problem wasn’t me.

Don’t fret, I’m aware of mistakes I’ve made because no one is perfect, but how were you able to walk away scot-free? To convince yourself that everything you did was valid?

I never wanted to stop kissing those lips, to stop running my fingers through your hair, and to stop losing myself in those eyes. I saw us lying by the fire and I saw us traveling the world. I saw you at the alter and I saw you holding our child. I thought you would understand, I thought I could talk to you about anything.

But one day I came home and the brick wall was built between us. I scratched and punched at that wall until I had lost all feeling. I couldn’t let our love slip into a coma and never wake up again. The songs on the radio were coming out and all of them intensified the pain that was starting to creep into my soul. I stirred my thoughts into a pot of insanity and ate them every day around supper time. Losing true love felt like falling onto jagged rocks, but to also lose a best friend murdered my sleep and stole my appetite.

I thought you were confused as you revisited me after severed ties and kissed the wounds you caused. You shot me through a tunnel of memories with each peck; only to later find out I was a game to you. Something nice to look at, but not worth purchasing from the store and cherishing. You didn’t feel like reading the instructions; I poured all my emotions on the pages. I lost the gift of loving myself. I gave you power over my emotions. I wanted to give up on containing happiness, and I almost did.

But as life carried on with other losses and hardship, I let go of the drug that kept me hooked on you: the past. Time never stops moving whether you are climbing mountains or living in shadows. I won’t forget when you kissed me for seven hours straight, when you made me a bouquet of roses out of strawberries, when we danced in my room to no music, when you said you were the luckiest guy ever or all the times you said you loved me. But your love needed to be transferred from my heart into the box under my bed for when my clock slows down and I can look back at someone who used to make me smile. I wish you the best and I don’t know who you are or who you’ve become, but I am a lion, tiger, cheetah, Phoenix, and everything that resembles strength, intelligence, and kindness. I love myself again.

Love,

Frankie