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Lauren Upadhyay Dec 2012
I'm sorry, I can't.
No you haven't done anything wrong,
I just can't do this.
The only way this is going to work
Is if I force myself to feel nothing
And for you to feel nothing in return.
If you could just do that for me please,
I would really appreciate it.
Because I enjoy your company and
I like being around you and
I want to be your friend, or
Whatever it is that we are.
But I don't want to love you.
I don't want to remember your birthday
Or get you a well-thought out gift.
I don't want to care how your day was
Or exchange stories about
The lives we led before we met.
I don't want to make memories with you
Or fall asleep with you next to me.
And I don't want to miss you when you're gone,
Or have to feel the painful empty space
You're inevitably going to leave behind.
Because you will go at some point,
And if I force myself not to care
I just might be able to handle that.
These feelings aren't reserved for you.
I don't want to love anyone. I'm sorry.
Lauren Upadhyay Dec 2012
I never thought the day would come
When I would see your name and feel absolutely nothing,
When I would come upon the once pernicious presence
That stormed and screamed through the boondocks of my mind
And find that it had ceased to be anything more than a weakly nostalgic echo.
I never thought I’d be able to go a day, two days, a week, a month
Without thinking of you, or that I would come across an old photograph
And notice for the first time the myriad of imperfections you possess.
I never thought I would ever be able get to this point, this place of utter indifference.
But here I am, entirely free of the ties that bound me to you.
And for the first time in a long time I can say with some shred of confidence
That I am happy.
Lauren Upadhyay Feb 2012
I am afraid.
Afraid that I will lose you
To the merciless entropy of the Universe,
Or to the inexorable mystery of God’s plan,
Call it whatever you want, but whatever it is
I am afraid that it will take you from me at any moment,
And that I will be alone again.

I am afraid.
Afraid that every moment with you will be the last,
And our last shared experience will be an insignificant goodbye,
And that will be the last memory I have of you.
That is why I insist on physical contact, because
It reassures me that you’re real and
I am afraid that if I don’t constantly remind myself
I will forget what you felt like,
And then I will forget what we felt like.

I am afraid.
Afraid that I will lose you and not remember you,
That I will feel an unbearable and aching emptiness
And not know why.
I am afraid of fading memories,
As they suggest an essential futility in the beautiful endeavor
That was us.
They suggest that we is incapable of being constant,
That we is merely a rotation of the stone
As it continues its mossless journey to the sea.

I am afraid.
Afraid that in losing we I will lose a part of myself
And remain forever broken and immutably unwhole,
Unable to put myself back together because
My pieces are missing.
I am afraid that we is an essential part of me,
And that I will never recover from the loss.

I am afraid of losing you and afraid of losing me.
I am afraid of being alone and afraid of being broken.

I am afraid that we will lose we and
Then nothing will ever be okay again.

I am afraid.
I am afraid.
I am afraid.

— The End —