I Miss You But I Don’t Want You Back

On the days I am choked with your memory, when the good times return to me so fleetingly, I allow myself to feel your presence around me again. I allow myself to breathe in the memory before exhaling as fast as I possibly can. Thinking of you is a slippery slope. I have wiled days away in your memory before, days when I should have been working, productive, doing anything but remembering you.

I wonder sometimes if there is a way you can find a way to block out someone entirely from your memory. Other days I try and find reasons to hate you and fail. A part of me has begun to believe that I may never ever get over this, the greatest loss I have endured emotionally. And no matter how many self help books I read, how many stories I find about losing people, I have not found a way to let go of you.

So instead, I allow myself to feel your memory, who you are, as deeply as I possibly can. Thinking that eventually the feelings will wear away, will find their way away from me. Maybe one day, I can teach the aching wolf that insists you are my only mate that I am not a wolf at all. I am human, and humans can have many mates. That I was wrong in thinking you were the only one. There are pieces of us strewn in everything I do. And sometimes, I think the pain will never end.

But here is what I believe, about losing the great love of your life. I believe people, for no reason sometimes, can become toxic for each other. I believe that love sometimes can be a terrible thing that does not allow you to grow. I believe that love sometimes hides the truth about the person you love. And I genuinely believe that self love is the most powerful love of them all.

And although I am suffering now. Although I am in pain, and I miss you terribly. I know that ending the forever story that was us was the right decision to make.

Leaving you has made me love myself more. Has taught me how to care for myself in ways I never imagined. This is me, saying I will always miss you. This is also me saying, I never ever want you back.

Nikita Gill is a poet and the author of the book
Your Soul Is A River.

Your Soul Is A River is available as a physical and electronic book. You can buy it here.