Slutbag on the brain (yet again)

It's been two weeks since I saw you.

It's been a stressful two weeks.

I miss Kait. She reminds me of Counting Crows and Adele and John Mayer and I want to listen and cry.

But, so often, the tears don't come. Because, you see, I didn't love her. Even though she deserved it.

And I loved you. Even though you didn't.

It hurts to think about. Seeing you... was disturbing.

Seeing you messed with my head in ways I still haven't processed.

I love you still. A little. The thought of touching you, of cherishing you, of holding you... all of that seems so foreign, so far away, so distant, so like a movie viewed while dreaming or drunk. And yet, there you are, in the hidden back rooms of my subconscious, skirting observation, holding on despite my best efforts to forget,

My best efforts to hate.

And I did. I hated you for a long, long time. I hated all women under the sun for a time. I threw the might of my baggage down on the ground in front of any woman who would hang around long enough to make me push her away.

And I hated. And hurt. And forgot what it was to be me. Forgot the humanity, forgot the love, forgot the hope, forgot the faith, and forgot my soul.

It is astonishingly frustrating to realize that I miss those that gave me support even as I push all that support away with everything I am.

I am an island, alone, now. I am solo, independent, on my own, and self-sustaining.

I am the shell of a man you always wanted. Even as you became a girl who -- possibly -- would have deserved my love.

I miss me. More than anything you ever did, more than anything you ever could have done, I miss the open-minded and hopeful youth I used to be. It's not you I hate, slutbag. It's what I became because of you.

The next level of acceptance is being okay with that. Saying goodbye to that person I used to be. Tolerating the shell I have become.

I'm mad, today, because you have become so very much the woman I deserved. Then.

Today, not so much.

Today, I deserve... what I have. Attention with no substance. Stress with little reward. Pain with no cause. Depraved indifference, perhaps.

I miss that guy I used to be. I miss Kaitlin, because even as I pushed her away she believed I was that man. And I miss...

Eh. That's about it right at the moment.