I can’t believe you still come to mind so often.

Generally, I am flying high without you in my life. I am more confident, more independent, more clear-headed, and more emotionally stable. Work is great. Good men are interested in me. The sun is out and I am feeling more peaceful every day. At first, following your weak-ass goodbye and total disregard for my feelings, I had such terrible anxiety that I chewed all my fingernails down to the quick. I couldn’t sleep. I cried so regularly it became almost comforting to feel tears in my eyes. I knew that you knew I was seeing you find other women. And it cut me so deeply, frustrated me so powerfully, that I couldn’t imagine not feeling that sting every day.

On that note, I knew exactly what those new women were to you, as soon as you started liking all their Instagram photos. You paint them as innocuous, just as you did to the other ones before her. It’s the same game, all over again. Another hot girl conquest. Another way to stir my pot and taste my jealous steam. Another person to give you that shallow self-esteem boost that you so desperately need from women. You’ll take anyone who strokes your ego, really, and string them along until you grow tired of the game. The hot stupid ones with great asses and embarrassing narcissism. The dark angry ones who taunt you and fuck you and make you feel just a little too dirty. The smart bubbly ones with pathetically endless affection and patience for you.

We all fall in love with you, and you delight in breaking us down slowly and carefully, like a good cardboard box, and discarding us.

You find our faults because you’re afraid. You can’t really love anyone because you hate yourself so much. You pretend to love; you feign affection and enter women’s lives with vampiric intention, playing us like a familiar set of chords until we fall under your bizarre, inexplicable spell. You’re a parasite. You have no desire to bring real joy to another person’s life for their sake; there’s always something in it for you. You take, or you give so that can complain about a lack of reciprocation. You never give just to give.

Speaking of that inexplicable spell, I have never been able to wrap my head around why my love for you was so great. You’ve been unemployed, lost, and stagnant for God knows how long. You claim that vapid hipster hobbies are your passions, yet your pursuit of them is purely verbal. You constantly victimize yourself and take no responsibility for any negative goings-on in your life. And save for the fact that I wanted you more than I’ve wanted anyone in my life, the sex wasn’t even great. I wanted it to be, but it was distant and forced. I cried in the shower afterwards.

I wish that after I told you I was hurting and you chose to shove me out the window so callously, I could have just hit the ground and started an amnesiac’s second life, living in blissful ignorance of you. Truly, I can’t believe I fell for all your insecure bullshit, and let you condescend me and treat me like I had flaws that made me unworthy of love. I loved you SO MUCH, even with all the fucked up shit that you put on my plate. I wanted to heal you, so that you could see yourself the way I saw you. I wanted your evils to melt away when I was with you, so that you’d be the best you. The delighted, affectionate man I saw when we stomped around in the snow. That day was wonderful, aspirational.

I hope you remember it fondly and achingly for the rest of your life, so you always recall what life is like when I love you.

I don’t think I love you anymore, because I’ve been so plagued with hatred and hurt at your hands. But I know I wouldn’t still feel the sting if I didn’t at least love you a little bit still. I can’t wait for that to go away. It disgusts me. You’ve been so heartless and cold. You’ve only served yourself in your attempts to keep me on the line. You don’t care about me, and I don’t know that you ever did, because of how easy it was for you to let me go. I must be rather arrogant myself, because I clung to the idea that you would miss me enough that you would realize the err of your decision to shrug me off.

I think (I know) that’s what bothers me most. I knew I was the best woman and could give you the best love you’d ever know; you treated me like a selfish convenience, while I made you a priority. I hate that I didn’t have the disinterest. I hate that you did.

I sometimes find myself hoping you never find real love as a punishment for breaking my heart. But in moments of greater clarity, I hope I look back on this and feel silly for thinking you were anyone important.