Promises That Drowned Me: The Cruelty of Almost

A letter to You: There’s a particular kind of grief in being hurt by someone not through grand betrayals, but through small, deliberate cruelties disguised as tenderness. Through promises made in candlelight, then broken in daylight, while still claiming love. Through being held in one moment and humiliated in the next. That’s a special kind of ache. You once said sometimes you wish you could strangle me. I wish you did too. It would be a relief.

I always thought if I was ever betrayed, it would be in the ways people write songs about. A stranger’s number on your phone. A kiss stolen in some dim, foreign room. The predictable ways lovers fail each other. But no — you did something far crueler. You loved me. And still, you betrayed me.

You told me to believe in you. Told me you'd save me. Promised you wanted me. And when I reached for you in the dark — when the wolves circled, when I asked you to stay — you turned to them, pointed at me, and said you didn’t know me. Said I made you come. Said you pitied me. As if to say, did you really think I would ever want you? It's all just a joke. None of it was real.

You made me small in front of them. You called me things I cannot repeat without crumbling. And yet I stayed for I loved you. I could pay any price to reach you but when I did, you couldn't recognize me.

I made myself small enough to fit inside the cage you gave me, hoping if I shrank enough, you’d call me precious again. You knew what you were doing. Your words — chosen not by accident, but with the precision only someone who knows your softest places can wield. You said things meant to ruin me in the exact ways you knew would leave me bleeding for years. And then — you’d follow it up with a compliment. How you find me so beautiful and amazing and special.

A twisted ritual: You’d call me worthless. Then call me amazing. But the first words always stayed longer, like venom that refuses to leave the bloodstream. It hurt my heart but I would smile seeing you affectionate with me, and put a bandage on my bleeding heart - ignoring how you kept calling me so worthless. How I'm exactly the one for you yet I'm disgusting and unworthy. I keep holding on that you mean the ones you said with love and the knife stabs are ones from anger. Now I don't know anymore.

I try to fix the things that hurt you but you don't want me to but you remind me of how horrible I am for them. But you don't see how willing I was to make you see I was trying too, I'm a human too. I was going to fall off the pedestal I was going to disappoint you in ways I never intended. But if I never hated you for all that you called me so many times, why was my ones irreversible?

I clung to faith in you. Even when it was faith in a ghost. Even when you said I was the one you pitied. You didn't love me. And for all your promises to help, to be there, to pull me from the abyss — you kept none of them. Not even the ones that cost you nothing. My copium - you snatched those from me to before you left. But you never believed my reason for "leaving" you wasn't abandonment. I could never abandon you - not even now when you left me to die in these woods.

It’s strange — you never hurt me the ways people write about. No infidelity. No distance. No nonchalance. It wasn’t absence. It was your presence full of hatred.

You hurt me by making me so happy then knowing exactly what would shatter me, and choosing to say it anyway. You used the very things I gave you in trust as weapons when you felt cornered, when you wanted to leave without looking like the villain. You never were a villain in my story - you were my love and will always be. But you wounded me and I do not care for the damage it has done to me. I might live a lot fewer years for that but I have no regrets for every good moment with you was worth a thousand years.

And still — still — I held affection for you. Maybe I'm monstrous for that in your eyes. But I know how to forgive. I know how to keep my promises. Even the ones I only made to myself. Perhaps, that's why I grieve for being unable to keep mine for you in the future because you are so far away. I don't make promises I don't intend to keep, or change my mind about them.

So now, I set you free. Free from my belief in your goodness and love for me. Free from my desperate hope that you would save me. From my god-like faith and devotion in you, that refused to believe you could ever hurt me - for it seems, even my faith in you was a burden you didn't want. Free from my prayers that you’d remember the version of yourself who held my hand like it was a vow. And then forgot all about it when the moment came. It wasn't your fault truly. I shouldn't have believed your words like a child knowing how much you hated me. Why would you want me still when you say you hate everything about me?

I’ll keep walking with this grief-child you left me. It’s mine now. I'll smile in your memories, do the things you wanted me to. I'll try to keep your dreams and promises for whatever numbered days my health can endure, after everything. And remember how once you loved me fiercely till hatred took over. Maybe all of this was a joke. Just like me.

The final cruelty was that of almost: we almost had everything, you almost kept your word, we almost made it and fulfilled our dreams. You almost chose me.

Maybe you don't care much for my promises to you either and never wanted them. I just wish when you hated me you did completely. Not melt when you see me still pine for you and whisper you love me just as much, that you can't be without me too. I still honor every promise I made you. I won't let anyone or anything disrespect it. Even though I know very well this loyalty of mine for you will never be appreciated, or even welcomed. Or even taken as genuine. I wish it wasn't genuine - for nothing is more painful than your real feelings and pain be dismissed as unreal?

If you really wanted to laugh at my expense and tell everyone I'm insane, I wish, before that, you didn't caress my hair gently so I slept so peacefully than I had in the last few years and when you thought I was asleep you kept whispering how much you love me and only me and kept whispering my name so many times it was all I could hear. And when I woke you were cold and hateful again, pushing me away when I wanted to comfort you in your pain.

I don't know anymore what I was to you. Someone pathetic as you told everyone or someone amazing as you whispered behind me? Maybe it was both. Maybe neither.

And if I was devastated and betrayed and even more hurt seeing you take away my crutches to increase my suffering when it wasn't bothering you, I'm glad you showed me so much affection in the midst for I would do anything to earn your approval and affection but I know nothing I can ever do will be enough for you to be soft with me again. I'm glad for your love and affection, especially when you thought I didn't notice I did. My mind spins wondering if that was real or a joke too, if I was just a fool pining for someone who hates me and wants me gone. It's alright - I won't burden you even with my love, with my promises I still intended and fought to fulfill. But you are always welcome to sit beside me, and laugh like the old times. Nothing you do would make me hate you, but I know things I do that angers you will forever change how you see me. I hope you are at least comforted knowing mine won't change. But I know in your own way, you tried your best. It was me who was unlovable. I couldn't keep you happy. Perhaps, someday you will find someone who will even with half my effort.

You don’t have to carry me anymore. I see now, I never existed in your world — not really. I was a ghost you entertained out of guilt, a shadow you tried to outrun by pretending you didn’t know me when the wolves came. I hope you’re happy now. Free of me, as you told them you wanted. I hope your nights are quiet, that no version of me lingers in your sky.

And when I meet you someday in the stars — or whatever comes after — I’ll greet you like a stranger. And for the first time, you’ll have to wonder what it’s like to reach for a hand that isn’t there.

Goodbye.