Pretty Pictures and Broken Pieces

It’s a really pretty picture. Us together, holding hands, being happy. It’s a really nice picture. But it is just that—a picture. One that doesn’t even exist. Tell me you love me. Tell me you’re falling for me. That gravity is just too strong because you can’t pull yourself away. We could have been a masterpiece.

But we aren’t a masterpiece. We aren’t even pretty. We’re strangers. We don’t belong on any wall. You said you stopped yourself from loving me. You stopped the picture we could have been. Because you were scared I would hurt you. And now I have, just as you hurt me.

I would say and eye for an eye is petty. I could say that it’s pointless. It wouldn’t change anything. All of that would be correct. But I didn’t mean to hurt you. I’m sorry it happened, but I had to start taking care of myself.

You made it clear you weren’t going to love me. You found someone else to love. You knew I was going to hurt you so instead you got scared. You ran away from something where you didn’t know the future, but you said you did. You never gave us a chance and in turn robbed us of our picture.

You started creating a picture with someone else; I started painting my own. It hurt, you left me to paint over our “could-have-beens,” our superhero debates, our lightsaber fights, our midnight talks about good vs. evil. I painted over it, then I painted over you.

When you chose to be with someone else; that meant you couldn’t be with me. It meant we were done. You said you didn’t want to be with me so I said goodbye; you can't be hurt. You gave up the right to be in my life, because you knew we couldn’t be just friends.

I don’t know what you were expecting? Maybe you wanted me to fight for you. I did, for a long time. You didn’t care. You started caring when you knew I was done. When you couldn’t have me anymore. I stopped fighting.

You remind me of our pretty picture. You remind me of our made up future. You remind me that we’re apart because you ran away. You remind me that today, I am stronger. I stopped loving you and started loving myself.

You’ll never be gone. You’ll always be a layer of paint in my picture. We have a past. We have scars and battle wounds. We’ll always have that layer. And one day, you’ll fade in with the other layers of paint. My picture will change a multitude of times and you will only occupy the thin slice of my past when I thought we were creating a future.

That doesn’t mean I don’t care about you, I did love you and that means I have hopes for you.

I hope you love her. I hope you can give her hope and love and a beautiful picture where you both had a hand in creating. That you don’t run away, you don’t get scared, don’t shut her out. I know you are broken in ways I couldn’t fix. We were both broken, but our pieces didn’t match. I hope she can fix you in a way I couldn’t. I hope she doesn’t hurt you and that you can be something with her, you could never have been with me. Show her your soul, I know you say its dark, but I know it is beautiful. In a way the broken souls are the most beautiful.

I hope she is the last layer of paint on your picture.