I Would Rather Have You Hate Me Now, Than Break Your Heart Later On

Everyone keeps asking me what went wrong, or why it happened, and I’m still not sure of what the right answer is. I tell them it was something that had to happen because it’s the only answer that comes to mind, and because it’s truth.

I’ve grown accustomed to the breakups that sounded more like praise than a rejection, and there was a part of me that hated them for doing so. I was never able to understand how someone could say such beautiful words to another person in such an ugly situation. Not until now.

I always believed it was the coward’s way out: “Kill ‘em with kindness.” To be completely honest, I never put much stock in their words because they seemed so hollow.

How could anyone say how wonderful you are all the while acknowledging that they don’t want to be with you anymore? It was bullshit to me. Maybe it still is, only now I’m the bullshitter.

The eternal optimist inside of me wants to believe they did it for the right reasons. The skeptic inside of me believes that everyone, at their core, is selfish. I don’t know if one is right, or if one is wrong. I don’t know if it’s a combination of the two, or neither, whatsoever.

I know that I never wanted to hurt you, but I also knew that was never an option that would be afforded to me.

You could hate me here and now, with unanswered questions in your head and hurt in your heart; or you can hate me later, after your heart dropped to the depths of your stomach and smashed into so many pieces that the damage rendered would be irreparable. If those were my only choices, it would never come to the latter.

You opened doors for me that I was sure were locked forever. You made me believe things that I was sure were mythical. But I didn’t want you falling in love with someone who couldn’t love you back the same way.

I’m a better man for having met you. I’m a better man for having known you. I only wish that I was a stronger man for you.

Someone else deserves the chance to love you the way that I couldn’t, and I would never want to stand in the way of either of you meeting each other one day.