He could have had all of me if he had wanted.

If I had wanted. I did want it. He could have had all of me if I were not a coward.

I recognize that he was not perfect and that I am also so far from it but that would never be enough to comfort me when my heart is in the midst.

Maybe I’m playing the victim. Maybe I could have done more. Maybe I could have deconstructed the wall I had taken the time to build after my first betrayal from a friend and significant other. I hadn’t meant to become that girl. The girl that has been hurt before and as a result makes the men that offer to take his spot pay for it. I tried so hard to be tough. I wanted to play the game as well, if not better, than the men I had encountered and as a result made myself unlovable.

Maybe that’s a stretch. I am capable of love, despite how I try to avoid it. I am capable of being loved, no matter how I try to avoid it. My ex got tired of me. He chucked me to the side during one of the worst times of my life and moved on the very next day. Since then I’ve always assumed that men like the idea of me, and they always enjoy the first taste of me but after trying the same thing for so long don’t you ever want to sample the rest of the menu. My ex made it obvious that he couldn’t sate his hunger with just me.

He was my friend. He told people how close he was to loving me. I had abandoned him. I stopped talking to him, avoided eye contact and forced myself to let go of my feelings for him. I lied to my friends and said that I was ready to move forward, but that he was moving too slow. But the truth was, I wasn’t ready to go anywhere. I wasn’t ready to allow him to dig deeper under that wall I had built, not prepared for him to continue his pursuit of pulling it apart brick by brick. I pushed him away in the coldest way possible.

I was not the victim and I’m sorry I made everyone think I was.

You were the victim. All you wanted was to make me feel beautiful, to wrap your arms around me, talk me out of the moments when I was so stressed out I didn’t think I would leave my bed. You only wanted to encourage me to pursue writing and to perfect my craft and all I did to thank you was cut you off cold.

I often wonder how long we would have lasted. If we had gotten that far would he have stayed? Or would he have picked up the menu and decided to try something new?

I gave up the chance to know the answers to those questions. Instead I decided to put you out and I got on my knees with bricks and mortar and reconstructed that wall. Brick by brick.

Nayyirah Waheed said, “I am mine. Before I am anyone else’s.”

And I’ve realized that I’ll never be happy in a relationship when I am still patching up wounds from a man. No man deserves to be the recipient of baggage that another man has left behind. My trust issues and self-esteem troubles have plagued me and ruined me and stopped me from loving unconditionally and irrevocably; the way I want to love.

I need to be alone. I need to learn to love myself despite what I’ve been through. And I am learning to love my self and how to be so comfortable with myself that I can take a chance next time it’s offered to me.

People get hurt everyday but it doesn’t mean that they should stop trying.

He deserved more. More than I was willing to give and I apologize to him for allowing him to get so close to me and snatching it from him.

I apologize to him and I apologize to myself.

To everyone out there avoiding love because of past experiences, I am sorry you had to go through that but there is a man out there waiting patiently, making room for you and willing to help you through that but he will only stand so much.

Your past does not have to be your future.

We need to know that we are capable of loving someone unconditionally. We will be able to trust again and we are beautiful. And it doesn’t matter how many times someone else says it; we just have to know it first.

Taylor H.
Pitched Entry