Mao mao

I feel very detached today. 

I was watching kids play in the park, 

but it overwhelmingly smelled like dog poop. 

I was wondering in the back of my mind

why the other people couldn’t smell it too.

I thought I’d be happy to eat choco-chip egg puffs, 

I was wrong.

Then I went to the thrift store

and even though everything was amazing, 

I was not. 

Hoping to raise my spirits, I bought a chocolate, 

but I still could not. 

It can’t be fatigue, 

I barely did anything today, 

a friend wanted to hang out

but I had no words to say. 

My mind feels fuzzy 

yet devoid of thoughts right now; 

I’m trying hard, but all I can remember 

is that cats are called mao mao. 

1224

Not a great thing to feel at the beginning of the year

I have realized something today. 

Truth be told, I realized it long ago, but I shoved the thought in the back of my mind and asked it to shut up. I said to myself, "This is not true. This is just your excessive thinking." I repeatedly told myself to look at things from your point of view: life was hard for you, it is completely acceptable for you not to think of me. 

But now I know that you just don't care about me. 

You used to. There is no denying that. Perhaps you didn't have the best ways to communicate it but I saw it. In the once-in-a-lifetime-sent letter you'd written to me. In the way you tried to be there for me when I was stressed. In the "hate ya, love ya" back-and-forths. In the "miss ya" confessions. 

Every time you'd disappear from my life, I would text you, I would be worried about you, and then you'd apologize. You'd tell me how you feel terrible but you were going through something so you could not keep in touch. Yet you could stay in touch with other friends. I knew that, then why did I keep welcoming you back with open arms? 

I believed your reasons. I told you we'd always be friends. 

I never wanted you to take the blame because you already blamed yourself enough for everything and I just could not add to the list. So I believed that it was just your circumstance. It was just me being selfish for wanting a friend to reciprocate the love and care I gave them. It was just natural and the universe was to blame and the stars were to blame and the gods were to blame and I was to blame, but not you, no I would not allow that.

But now I see what has happened. You have done nothing but take me for granted the past two years. I have been there for you no matter how hard it has been for me, and you have done nothing but leave me again and again and again and again and again and again. 

I think I deserved more from this friendship. I don't think I want to give it another chance now. It will rip my heart into pieces to say goodbye to one of the friends that I have loved the most in my life but... you never loved me so. 

I keep thinking that maybe the intensity of your struggle was stronger than the intensity to check up on me, maybe you were thinking so much that there was no space left in your mind to think of me, your best friend of years, and maybe you were so busy that you couldn't commit to a long-distance friendship. 

But if I could, why couldn't you? There is only one explanation. I cared about you too much and you cared about me too little. 

As I sit here and write this, I feel so upset, so hurt. I try not to cry. I don't want to cry. But I know that I treated you better than the best, and I loved you and cared for you, and I could never deserve what you gave me in return. 

I could not close this letter even if I wanted to. It should be abrupt, exactly the way you cut me off from your life. 

You were the greatest love of mine, the kind that happens once in a lifetime. We could have made a great couple if only we both held on. I know you had tried and I know I made it hard, harder than it should have been. If only I could let my guard down, if only I wasn't scared of intimacy, I wouldn't be writing this now.

I never told you why I was reserved. You thought it was something about you. It was, but not in the way you thought. It was never something bad about you. I was scared of the power you had. You held my heart in your hands and it gave you the power of breaking me completely. I was so scared of that. I was scared of how much I loved you. I was scared that you didn't love me back. 

I know you would never hurt me. And I know that when you did crush my heart, it was only because I drove you to it. I regret not trying harder. I think about it every night, and every night I wish I could just accept what happened and turn the page over. But I can't. I guess I just feel disappointed in how things turned out to be. 

You were the greatest love of mine, and I let you slip.