State of Heart

Stuck in Loops

It hurts to breathe.

The smoke burns my lungs as the nicotine clings to my fingertips. It tastes disgusting, but I still take another inhale, choking back my coughs. I don't know why I do this to myself. I just get my hopes up and then I'm met with the same outcome time after time. Then I end up right back here. Alone and left in my feelings.

Gross. Feelings.

I always tried to pretend like I don't have any. That maybe I'm just as heartless as the girls in those T.V. shows. I began to believe I was like that. Like I didn't care if he called my name. That I'd give him a piece of my mind whenever he pulled his typical shit. That maybe I'd be brave enough to just walk away...but I'm not that lucky. In the end, despite how much I hate it, I have feelings. I have feelings that gravitate towards him whenever he says my name.

Just imagining him calling for me makes my heart flutter, though I wish it didn't. My life would be so much simpler if I could just...forget him...but I can't. I can't just rip him from my mind as if he never rammed his way into my life. I can't just strip him from my flesh as if he never touched me. I guess I can't do that because...because maybe...just perhaps...I love him.

I love him.

That's such a foreign thing to say. To actually say it out loud is even more foreign. I don't think I've ever loved someone...not like this. I was willing to move in with him. I would have given up my dream of marriage for him. I was willing to never have children for him. I was prepared to bend over backward for him, but he couldn't even give me a straightforward answer. He couldn't even give me a simple 'yes' or 'no'...but he told me he "cares about me". That he "has feelings for me". What does that even mean? I'll tell ya what it means. It's a cheap way of saying "I like you, but not enough to show it to others" -that's what it means.

My phone goes off for what feels like the millionth time today. I glimpse down. It's him again. No, not the him from above but the other him. The him who wears his heart on his sleeve. The him who tells me he loves me and wants me. He wants to put a ring on my finger and a baby in my womb, but I do not want to bear his name nor his children. I do not want to belong to him.

I feel guilty for feeling this way. Guilty because he cares, and he is willing to do what the first is not. It's horrible to feel this way. I wish I could strip my love and give it to the second. I wish I could truly love him...but my heart continues to cradle the first...and I hate it for that. Or do I hate myself?

I'd be no stranger to that. There have been plenty of times where I despised myself for stupid things. Things that I can't control. I mean, you can't help who you love. I never used to buy that crap. I still find it hard to believe at times. Sure, ya can. Be with someone who wants you...that's what I tell myself.

Be with the second even if you'd have to learn to be happy...but I don't want to learn to be happy. I just want to be happy. I want to be happy and maybe that happiness lies not with the first or the second, but elsewhere altogether. I am happy with myself. Maybe I'll find more with someone else altogether. Right?

Hell...maybe my happiness is out there looking for me, too. Maybe they're searching through every bar and club, looking for my face, but they won't find me there. I'd like to think we'd accidentally run into each other in the grocery store or brush each other's fingers by mistake while reaching for the same book in the library. Then again, maybe we'll find each other while on the street. They'll see me and I'll see them.

It's corny and cheesy and maybe a little predictable, but it's what I hope for. To love and be loved equally and freely. Them proudly displaying their love for me and vice versa. No shame...no hiding...no one-sided affection. Just two people wrapped in one another's embrace. That is what I hope for.

My phone goes off yet again to another message, this time...from the first.

I shouldn't...but I open it. It's just four words. Four little words that keep me looped around his finger.

I miss you, Isabel.

© 2019 K.N. Herzner