How I cry for you continues to embarrass me. 

I let my face streak with tears each time I hear your name. The irony of us sharing such a thing will never be lost on me, as I will never stop hearing yours. I cannot deny the cracks it causes each time the six letters are repeated directly at my never-prepared face. The bittersweet resentment accompanying the once beloved word may never disappear completely, but I welcome the day that the memory of your face begins to fade. 

The luck that has come with the loss of you is not lost on me. 

I have found a purpose in the resilience you have forced me to embrace that I could never find in my love for you- but I will not deny once recklessly using our love as a reason to justify my being. I have spent too many sleepless nights pleading to understand why love, alone, cannot seem to justify my living.  Although it makes the anchor tied around my heart begin to tug when I recall the moments we shared, times I used to wish would continue infinitely, I no longer cling to a haunting hope of sharing them once more. You cannot be my reason for being, and because of this, our love was never meant to be everlasting.

What I found in you, I will never find in another.

This truth no longer saddens me, nor causes everything inside of my body to violently twist when confessed. There is both power and comfort to be found in knowing that there will be no repetition of you. There will be no unbearable loss of you twice, and we will never share a cautious first beginning ever again. I will never be forced to endure the pain of your betrayal for a second time- and while I will not live out the rest of my life unscathed, you will never be allowed to add another tally to the lines which mark my greatest pains. 

You have affected me irreversibly, but you will never have the power to affect me further.

With your loss came the promise of never being a victim of your careless hurting again. You will forever have the infamous talent of escaping accountability. You will continue to hold the hearts of others in your hands, feeling no remorse as they begin to drip with innocent blood from being squeezed too hard. You will feel no regret when the violent shade of red splatters all across your body, as the vital organ is dropped and discarded. You will never experience the overwhelming pangs of guilt that come with a second thought, as you watch the ones most lovingly devoted to you burn. You will continue to conceal your dishonesty with perfect precision. You will forever craft your interactions, making sure to hide the ways in which you do not care if the ones you claim to love are left wrecked. This is the consequence of loving you.

I am aware that this writing may lead a reader to believe I hate you, but I never could. 

I will resent you for a little while longer. I will bask in the healing warmth of anger as I process the loss of you. I will embrace the hope-ridden delusions of denial until I can no longer ignore the painful new reality you have left me with- but eventually, when they begin to itch, I will start to stitch up the fresh wounds now taking up space on my skin. I will assess their shape only to realize they all reflect the shape of you. I will admit that this hurts. I will accept that it exists, and 

I will be happy without you.



© 2023 Niki Christine. All Rights Reserved.

A journal entry from April 1st, 2023. 

Some days I wish something bad would happen just so I stop feeling crazy for feeling this way. 

On days like these, days where the thoughts are consuming and both the physical and mental memories are running rampant, I wish something would happen- something bad enough to justify this breakdown but not enough to cause me to spiral for days. This also makes me feel like a victim complex. I hate it. I hate this. I hate admitting this. It feels gross and wrong. It feels like I am manipulating someone into pitying me. Except I don't want pity, and no one is witnessing these bad moments or thoughts. It's only this page, and a page can't judge me- but it can reflect me, and I don't like the reflection I am seeing right now. 

To not like me, to not like my feelings and expressions and thoughts, my pain and my healing, is only an iteration of the silence the abuse causes. That it perpetuates. I don't talk about this often. Not with newer, though close, friends, and I have stopped mentioning it to older, closer, friends as well. I fear that I am hitting a dead-end repeat button that will get me nowhere other than an echo chamber of shitty emotional checkmate. Mentioning this to my therapist would be her having to listen to my repetitive recollection of the events. It would be an endless moment where someone accidentally tells you the same story twice- except it's a thousand times and it is depressing. An emotional annoyance and maybe a burden as well.

She would never say this, my therapist- but I never stop feeling this way. Never is a strong word, that is probably not true- but it has a nice ring to it with that statement. Although I will admit, that is a bit overly pessimistic even for my current tastes. I talked a little bit about it, about the experience, the memories- the deep-rooted fear that she is going to come out of the woodwork to haunt me- with a friend I have become close with since moving here. I feel uncomfortable now. I sent her a text to thank her again for listening to me. I made sure to thank her this morning as well, at the gym where we were training. It doesn't feel like enough. I have an overwhelming urge to repay her now, that I am in a sort of communications debt- the repayment being some intense listening sessions on my end.

​This is natural, however, right? That is how sharing works. Adjusting to also taking up some of the speaking space, and cashing in on the bit of listening repayment feels foreign, and gross to be quite honest. I feel icky causing people potential discomfort or bother because of my sad stories. I would rather not mention them- but at the same time, when asked how I am doing and how I feel, lying becomes a too-believable facade. This morning was me beginning to crack. It feels wrong, and that's okay. I know this is good, this is healthy and this is reciprocation that I am deserving of. I have to throw in my therapized analysis of everything to not let myself dwell on the shitty feelings. It sounds sort of dumb to always end sentences that way, but I do think it helps me redirect bad thoughts from becoming completely bad days, weeks, or months. 

Talking about it, however, out loud, only reminds me how sad it truly was. How much of my heart was devoted and how much of my existence was exploited. I ache for her. For my younger self. For a young woman who wanted to love and be loved and couldn't differentiate honest love and kindness from codependence and abuse if it slapped her in the face. It was all violence. The words, the hands, the cycle- yet it made sense. It made perfect sense and I kept diving deeper into this deluded idea that love was defined by its hardness. The idea that was my apparent birthright according to family. I think I’ll be returning that gift, thank you. It hurts a little too much nowadays. 

On the bright side, when bad things happen I always remind myself if I can handle what happened during that time I can handle this. Fear tends to subside when I think about this, and nothing feels too painful anymore. That is a nice side effect, I suppose. 



​© 2023 Niki Christine. All Rights Reserved.
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I am afraid I will feel you forever, in everything and everywhere. 

I can see the mark left by your hand pressed upon my cheek each time I look in the mirror. I can feel the now unbearable weight of your fingertips where they once gently traced my torn skin. I watch as all the stitches left by your love begin to rip as the time passes and drags on without you. Each tear that existed before you and started to patch in your presence now unravels in your honor. I will live with you inside of me always, despite knowing the space that once existed between us for 24 years has been reinstated. I have to laugh now at the memories of thanking a God, I am not entirely sure I believe in, for the once-believed blessed fortune of finding you. I slept next to you and replayed these prayers until my body exhausted itself. You slept next to me as you dreamt of another. I do not wish to remember this of you. At times, I do not wish to remember you at all. I do not want to carry you with me, always. I do not want to carry you with me, at all- but, 

you will forever be embedded into my being, through the imprint of your heart, as it remains eternally carved into mine.

I am afraid that I will remember the warmth of our love forever, only to never find the feeling again in another.

I am afraid of being stuck in this endless cycle of failed reconciliation as I try to make sense of the unbearable confusion and contradiction that is now your memory. I am afraid that I will be forever stuck in this loop of trying to understand the dichotomy that is you, a person who now reeks of dishonesty in all of the places I once found honest salvation. 

What if I forgave you? 

What if I did not let the uncontrollable sobs prevent me from standing up as you broke the news that broke me in return? What if my legs regained feeling a few seconds quicker? What if I was able to follow you out of the room, rather than let my body, overwhelmed with the weight of fresh betrayal, fall to the ground beneath us? What if I was able to lay beside you in our bed that night, where you found sleep so easily? What if I did not stay cemented to the couch until the sun rose, where I heard the words that led to our love’s decay? What if I did not let the words sink in? What if they had not already begun rotting inside of me before morning came? 

What if I forgave you? 

Did you find peace in your dreams that night? Have you found peace in your dreams since? Do you dream of me the same as I dream of you? Endlessly and kindly? Have I impacted you as profoundly as you have irreversibly affected me? 

What if I forgive you? 

What if I ignore these violent marks left upon my heart- each one identical to a footprint left behind as you walked away? What if I distract myself from their perpetual sting with the gift of your presence? What if I give you back my heart, anyway? What if I let all of this love I have left for you claw its way out of my throat and speak the words I am too afraid to say? 

“Come back,” the voice would say, “please, come back.” Except, the words would not come out coherently and the sentiment would begin to slur together with another much more humiliating. 

“Please, do not hurt me,” the voice would say. “I love you,” it would beg, “please, do not hurt me this way.” 

I cannot forgive you. I cannot forgive you so long as these words echo throughout the house that was once ours. I cannot forgive you so long as these violent marks of footprints upon my heart haunt mercilessly. I cannot forgive you so long as my body still crumbles at the thought of once being touched by yours. I cannot forgive you- but, 

you will forever be embedded into my being, through the imprint of your heart, as it remains eternally carved into mine. 

I cannot forgive you for what has been done, but I will never forget you for what we once were.


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© 2023 Niki Christine. All Rights Reserved.
​

I have loved you from afar, for the longest time. 

I have loved you long before I had the fortune of meeting you. There is nothing I can do to break this tether that pulls my heart to you. The heavyweight that sits atop my soul is unmistakable, and you have seen it. The suffocation that comes with a tortured memory and tainted past, you have seen it. The hurt that has shoved itself so deep into my tired body that its name changed to anger, you have seen it. You have watched me beg to be something different, to be healed of all that hurts. You have seen the desperation that comes with wishing for the safety of new moments, where the past could not creep in and contaminate- where the present could not be encompassed by old pains, at the slightest sound of a trigger once pulled. “I do not want to be this.” I confessed. 

“Please,” I thought, “do not let me be this.” 

You have seen all that I am, and all that I have been- and you have been kind.

I could not hide myself from you if I tried. I could not keep myself from you if I wanted. There is no world in which my body does not lean into the comfort of yours. There is no room in which I cannot find you. There is no time I will spend, nor place I will go, that will not know the weight in which I love you. There is no ground I will stand upon, that will not feel the wonderful weight of you, as I carry it with me. I swear, with all that I have to swear by, to never put this love down. To not misplace it, or let it fall. To not exploit it, or misuse it. I promise to do nothing but protect it, always. 

You have asked to see the heavy weight on my soul, and you have asked to carry it, too. 

You have offered to hold up the parts of myself that I do not have the strength to lift. 

With you, I am undone. Even the deepest, most unruly parts of my being- I could not hide from you. I could not hide from you even if I begged. There is no grip strong enough to keep this tightly wound rope around my heart from being pulled out by the sweetness of yours. There is nothing I can do. I cannot fight the overwhelming faith that is being placed in the palms of your hands. I cannot deny that the easiest choice of my life has been to choose you- and should a day ever come where you wish me gone, I can promise you this: 

I will simply, once again, love you from afar- for the longest of time.



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© 2024 Niki Christine. All Rights Reserved.