poisons and antidotes

I AM STUCK IN REVERSE, thoughts reeling backwards from the day you decided to take back the heart you placed on my hands. As I watched you walk away, your back on my face, the world began to spin the opposite way. The day grew darker till it completely faded into night. And I was left there alone like I usually am until you came. And I am still here, alone, drinking a cocktail of sadness brewed with my own hands—a poison to the soul I wish I could suck out of my system but couldn’t. Because in truth, you’re the only brand of happiness that could intoxicate me. You’re my antidote.

I need you and I want you back. I am mustering what’s left of my pride to choke out these words because I have no right to implore for anything. It is wrong for me to ask for forgiveness or any form of absolution. I am stripped of everything when I took that wrong small step that caused you a big deal of pain. And for that, no one should be blamed but me. It would be poetic justice for you to just loathe me for what I’ve done, and look me in the eye as you watch me slowly die in misery. I will leave you without harboring any trace of neither hate nor bitterness in my heart because you have given me the opposite. You have given me love, as sweet as any true love can be. And that what makes the separation much more unbearable. Because I fail to understand the reasons why I was able to give you hurts as much as I give you love.

There are people who believe in second chances, and those who don’t. I sincerely hope that you belong to those who do. Because if there’s still a sliver of chance, no matter how small it may be even to the point of almost impossibility, I’d still take it and bridge the struggles that I need to take for me to hold you in my arms again, facing new days with faith and hope renewed. I have betrayed your trust. And I don’t think there are right words to earn it back. But if you don’t believe and your door is already sealed shut, I will not barge it down. You deserve a safe haven free of lies and deceit, and selfish desires—a sanctuary where you can find healing from all the wounds I have inflicted upon you. I will not knock, but I’ll wait by your doorstep till you open the door and let me in, with nothing but a flower and a promise of always being there for you. But until that moment comes and we see each other somewhere in the future, I would look at you with joy and reminisce how we spent that one night basking underneath the flickering lights of the stars.

I am sorry and I love you—I hope these words would fail to diminish the true essence of what I am trying to say. Because in my heart, these two things stretch as far as the heavens and I hope they would reach and kindle yours and still find in it a special place for me to stay.