The first thing everyone told me was that you’ll come back
That one day you’ll come crawling on your hands and knees begging for me to forgive you
They say they always come back
But only once you’re finally over them
That if you see me moving on, it’ll flip a switch in your brain and you’ll realize just what you’re missing out on
But somehow I knew they were wrong
That I wasn’t that person to you
From the second you said that it was over
I knew
I knew that goodbye meant forever
That still being friends meant that I didn’t have to hate you
That I could just ignore your existence, but if I needed to ask you for something, I could
I knew that you had already moved on
That there was someone else filling that spot in your life
That I was alone in my hurt
In my loneliness
I knew and yet I still held out hope
I wore that shirt you liked the next day, and I thought of you every morning when I chose my outfit
I was like a guard dog with my eyes on the door
Waiting for you to enter and realize that you needed more
And I guess I was wrong
Because you did come back
But not the way they said you would
For one, I wasn’t over you
But more importantly, you did not come crawling on your hands and knees begging for me to forgive you
You came like a stray cat comes back to a house that once fed them
You came all business and negotiation
You came with an offer for a desperate girl who couldn’t afford to say no
And I didn’t
I said yes, desperately
I basically begged you to take me back
And you didn’t say no, but you didn’t say yes either
It was like diving into the ocean
The waves push you around, they claim you, but you cannot claim them
You cannot tame them
All you can do is go along with it and wait for them to release you
But you were never going to release me
And I realized quite quickly that you weren’t offering yourself to me
But you were saying I could give myself to you
Everything that you said no to
It wasn’t about protecting me
It was never about me
It was about what you were willing to put on your conscience
What you were willing to take from me
It was worse than before
It was a cop-out
Because I had the control
But we both know that wasn’t true
We both know that you had that too
You had everything, but only because I gave it to you
So I can’t be mad
I shouldn’t be mad
Why am I mad?
They said that you’d come back, and I hoped that they were right
I guess I got what I wanted
What a delight.
