STAINED BELIEVER

 

You made me a believer when it seemed Impossible. In beauty, in grace; In that kind of love that does not need reciprocation to be real. And I’ll always appreciate you for this awesome one. For letting our paths cross, for giving me this beautiful burden to bear, for marking me with her.
This is what I told myself at 2am when the philosophy felt clean and the pain felt holy

The only time I care, I get hurt real bad.

Bet nobody told you about the mornings after. About spawning in your DM’s to see, perhaps today a miracle in the form of a reply to my messages had dropped. Refreshing like a fool, like hope hasn’t learnt his lessons yet. Phone buzz and notification lights blink with promises it never keeps. Yet, I’m out here treating my phone a slot machine, pulling and pulling, waiting for my numbers to finally come up.
Three dots that never turn into words, read receipts that feel like murder scenes, Specific shade of blue that means “seen” but “not worth responding to”

The only time I care, I get hurt real bad.

I’ve memorized the patten now. How caring makes one stupid.

How it turns me into someone who checks last seen at 3:47am and does the math on who else might be keeping her up. Someone who rereads old conversations over and over for clues, the exact moment things shifted. Like I’m haunting for evidence for the scene of my own crime.

And now, I’m stuck in a dilemma, eyes blurred, brain clouded in brief, heart doused in rage. I want to watch the screens while I delete it all memories of you but, I’m too weak to pull it off.

Over the photos,

Over the conversations,

Over everything else that shows that something real happened here at some point.
Even if only my side of the screen it is.
Delete, I can’t.

She doesn’t even know what she took. She’ll never know I’m out here collecting breadcrumbs and calling it a feast.
Building entire futures from three-word replies. Dying a thousand small deaths every time her story shows someone else making her laugh the way I thought only I could.

Love is supposed to be a beautiful thing they say. “Transformative, Life changing.”
And they are right, It did change me. Transformed me into someone who can map every variety of silence, someone fluent in the language of "almost".

I loved,

I was changed

I was blessed enough to be ruined by someone worth remembering.

Yet, nobody mentions the other side. The scars, the pains of dependance and addiction that comes with these new transformations. Nobody mentions that these beautiful burdens get heavier everyday she doesn’t write back,

That every day I care a little more, she cares exactly the same amount as yesterday, which is not enough and will never be enough. It’s very obvious now,

The only time I care, I get hurt real bad.

I'm not surprised, neither am I disappointed. Even my first love left me in cold blood. Walked out without warning, without goodbyes, without teaching me how to survive a world where she didn't exist anymore. My mother made me understand loss before I understood language, taught me that the people you love most are practice for all the people who'll leave after.

So maybe I've been training for this my whole life. Maybe every unanswered message is just another version of that first abandonment. Maybe I keep choosing people who'll leave because at least that pain feels familiar, feels like home, feels like the first thing I ever knew about love.

The only time I care, I get hurt real bad.

And still, despite it all, despite knowing better, despite the pattern being so clear even a fool could read it

I keep spawning in those DMs. Keep hoping for miracles.

Keep caring like it won't destroy me again.

Because maybe that's what it means to be a believer.

Maybe faith always looks a little bit like foolishness from the outside.

Maybe the only proof I have that I'm still alive is that I'm still stupid enough to hope.

The only time I care, I get hurt real bad.

And I do it anyway.