He doesn’t know me enough to love me the way he says. We have never been friends. He doesn’t tell me what he’s thinking. I no longer attempt to share my deepest desires with him. When I have good news he is not the first person I call. He doesn’t know me. All we know is great sex. All we have is great sex. Come to think about it he only says he loves me voluntarily after sex. All of the men in my past probably did the same but this time I notice because for whatever reason, this time it matters.
I have never felt so broken. A man who I open up to after heart break who can easily continue to add damage has no heart himself. However, I can’t let him go. I acknowledge that this relationship is most likely the worst I’ve ever been in. I’m more miserable than I am happy. But I can’t let him go. I ache for the times we move in synchronization. I love how we move together. It makes me believe that I love him. In those moments I can’t remember the bad until he gets up, goes to the bathroom, cleans himself, and returns. Hard. Only soft after I snuggle up to him, and it’s easier for him to wrap his arm around me for comfort of the position.
He doesn’t know me. Days before Valentines Day I spend everything I have to make him happy. It’s the only way I can show him how I feel because he doesn’t hear me. I have conditioned myself to not tell him that I love him anymore. If I say it, it slips out. His response is always awkward. He pauses then returns the gesture. No feeling. Robotic. I watch him on his phone engrossed in conversations, laughing in a way I have never made him laugh.
At six o’clock in the morning his phone rings. It’s a ring tone I haven’t heard in a while. It’s a recording of a song he wrote last year that I’ve only heard once before, seemingly seeping through the cracks in the walls at the office as Zora played it over and over. He just got in. He rolls out of my bed and tells me he has to go again. Something to do with a band member needing a ride to the airport. I know it’s not true. It never is. On the nights he chooses to grace me with his presence, I watch him get up earlier than I do to always run some random errand.
I caught him once. Sitting in a cab outside of my job. Of course I thought he was there to see me. When I was about to approach the car I saw that his gaze was locked in another direction. He was staring at her. Watching Zora get her morning bagel from one of the deli carts outside of the station. Her morning routine. I realized that this was also Brent’s morning routine.
Now he’s off to see her again. I can’t object because then I get blamed for being unnecessarily jealous. As far as he is concerned I have no proof. The law rules heavily in our relationship “if there’s no proof, then there is no offense”. I deal with it. I hate him for it, but I say I love you when he leaves. He responds with his back turned to me.
He doesn’t know me. I don’t know me.
