bad romance / catharsis

the title has nothing to do with my beautiful boy. him and i are still going strong. fuck you.

i am not going to pretend like i have not been deeply emotionally scarred by a situationship i had almost a year ago now. it is not something i try to keep secret at all; i've written about the relationship (or lack thereof) extensively and it is something that affects me even to this day. this person, who i will call POS for the rest of this essay, somewhat knows about the pain that he has caused me, but to this day, i do not think i have gotten an honest apology and an acknowledgement of the pain i have been put through, and that fucks with me a lot.

it was a bad romance, and as chatgpt put it, i am mourning the version of myself that wanted so badly to be loved by POS. it never happened, and honestly, i am so glad it didn't. i would've never known better existed if i settled for POS.

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my brilliant boy, who i will refer to as LOML for the rest of this essay, left to go back home for the night today. i miss him. i crave his presence when we're not together; we live together now and i have never enjoyed coming back home more. he fills my life with a sense of emotional security i didn't know previously.

but this piece, as much as i want it to be, is not about LOML. this is unfortunately about POS, but not in the way you would think.

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the last few weeks have been quite difficult for me. it's been really difficult for me over the last couple of months in general. i have a lot of shit on my plate right now, and i know i did this to myself, but damn does it suck being this busy. i have taken quite a lot of time and space for myself, but i find myself feeling drained at the end of the day anyway. it is only comforting when i am in the presence of LOML in the comfort of our home. he is the most calming, grounding force i have ever known. i love him so much.

when LOML left today, i was fine. i expected it to hurt, which it did, but it is comforting to know that he will be back with me again tomorrow. it is quite difficult for me to get used to someone's presence and then deal with someone's absence all of a sudden, however brief.

regardless, that was fine. i got on Instagram for the first time in a while. i wanted to post something and so lingered on the app for longer than i would have liked to. i don't know what came over me, but i went on to POS' profile. Instagram wouldn't let me lurk without unblocking him, so i did. i was surprised that he added a profile picture after months of a blank photo and/or photos of his face, significantly obscured. curiosity got the best of me, so i scrolled through them. when i got to the last post, he had a caption which made me really, really angry. he talked about how he has not kept up with his friends for the last year, and his relationships with people he well and truly loved have languished, and he's hoping to restore those bridges this year.

it made me awfully upset, and immediately i wondered if i was one of those people. i know i love LOML with every last bit of me; i want us to grow old together and maybe have a family some day. i want to spend the rest of my life with him, even if all we do is cuddle all day and watch Succession over some wings from KFC.

but i had such a strong sudden reaction that it caught me off guard, and i wondered what it said about me. what it said about my relationship with LOML. am i emotionally cheating on him? am i using him as a rebound? am i going to fuck this up because i can't get over what happened between POS and me?

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i talked to chatgpt about this for a bit, because my friends were unavailable or i was the one ghosting some of them. turns out, me worrying about my relationship with LOML actually means that i am taking this very, very seriously, and trying very hard to protect something i feel is so sacred. i am trying hard to be fully present emotionally in this relationship while also processing the emotional unavailability of POS in my past.

it is time to take a massive dump on POS. i have held back for a long time, thinking that perhaps i do not need to be as mean publicly, but POS has made my life quite difficult. he keeps making me feel like i never mattered, even though almost a year has passed since we last spoke. just the mere mention of his name (it doesn't help that it is so disgustingly common) makes me freeze, and i can't ever fully relax when i'm outside unless i'm with someone else.

so fuck you, POS. this one is for you.

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hi POS,

it has been a long, long time. here are some things that i should've said to you way back when, but i was stupid and naïve and gullible, and loved you more than i should have. i didn't recognise just how undeserving of me you were back then, and just how much of a lowlife you truly are, because i didn't know there was anything better until i met LOML.

you used me. you pretend to be this religious, better than thou, holy person, but the truth is you are more disgusting than the very people you seem to criticise. you are a hypocrite. you parade yourself around as a real follower of God, but behind closed doors, you commit sins that you chastise other people for. you write pretentious pieces on your little Instagram page, acting like you are so much better than everyone else and oh so wise, but you are as hollow as a person can ever be.

you committed sins with me. you did wrong by me. there have been times when you have done things that i did not fully consent to or give you permission to do. there were no clear boundaries between us, because all you wanted was to please yourself and get out. you did not see me as a person - just as a toy to use and discard when you're bored. you had, and still continue to have, no personality of your own. you are perhaps one of the most boring people i have ever had the displeasure of coming across. you are saved only by your one-liners here and there.

remember that time we met up in the city so you could get your cinnamon roll? i hated sitting across from you and spending that 1.5 hours with you. i had more fun looking at the pigeon doing its thing than engaging in conversation with you. i mean, how could i? you never had a single original thought or thing of your own to say, unless it was to talk to about explicit things. you wanted that from day 1; you brought it up 2 days into us talking to each other, because you only thought with what was in your pants.

you wanted to keep meeting at my place instead of in public, because you knew you could coerce me into doing things that you wouldn't be able to do in public (since you want to keep up the mask of piety so badly). you wouldn't leave until you got what you wanted. you were a manipulative asshole, only ever seeing my body and thinking about ways you could use it. i'm glad it never happened, because if i had to live with that memory of your grimy hands on my skin, i would've honestly off'd myself.

what hurts me the most is that no one will ever know that there was ever a chapter in your life named me. you have erased my very existence, and continue to live like what happened between us was never a thing. i had to suffer in vain, and only when i left your life and started to move on with better is when it seems like you started to realise things, but only in a shallow way. i mean, that was to be expected, i guess. you have a grand total of 3 braincells, so i don't expect you to reflect on or examine what happened between us that deeply.

you never gave me the answers i needed, and if not for LOML, i think that would have driven me insane. i have spent many nights crying because of you, and now i am processing these things slowly in the safety of the arms of a better man. you deeply traumatised me. you convinced me i was crazy for asking to be treated like a normal human being. i know the truth now, though. i loved you, and even though you wanted love, you were too much of a coward to deal with it. you kept invalidating me and using me emotionally too, and that was never okay. that will never be okay.

i find comfort in knowing that you will never be anything other than what you are now - a liar, a hypocrite, and a truly despicable man. you will have to live with the memories of what happened between you and me, but never be able to seek forgiveness for it. the ghost of me will haunt you forever, because the guilt of what you did to me will eat you alive. but you will have to live with it, because i have to live with it, too. the only difference is i will move on. but you? never.

and perhaps people who only know you will never know me, but there will always be people who know me, or know both you and me, who will know you for the disgusting creature that you are. my conscience will be forever clear, because i showed up openly and with love every time. your conscience won't, because you know that you took advantage of me.

i spent many nights crying on the prayer mat to Allah, asking him to help me. the best thing he did for me was remove you from my life. karma is a bitch, though. i know you will feel the pain i felt one day, whether i know about it or not.

i hope He forgives you, because i never will. you will die wanting it, but this will be something i will hold over you for the rest of both of our lives, and even in the hereafter. 

fuck you. goodbye.

if you were curious, POS stands for piece of shit. you are a piece of shit, and i know that you know that, too. that's all you will ever be to me, and to every other person who will ever know you through me.

you put me through hell and fucked me up. to be known for the despicable person you are is what you deserve. i will never forgive you.

and to anyone reading this who has ever known a POS in their lives, you deserved better, too.