I am an outsider
Your friends
Your lovers
You're all connected
But not me

I am the unfamiliar
The unknown
The stranger in the crowd
No one sees me
But maybe you do

So sensitive we are
Deeply sunk in our love
With it we keep each other afloat
Through this toxic river of life
Even though we both love another
And recognize the depth of our feelings together
We still experience tremoring fear
In the face of the other's other

I feel lost and alone
Wandering through this darkness
What used to be my light
Dwindles in the distance

We feel so far away
So disconnected from our souls
I feel as though I'm nothing now
That if I chose to leave
Your life would not change
At least not in a bad way

You'd have more time for others
More time for yourself
Less stress from the nerves I break
You wouldn't have to be angry either
One less person to make time for
One less perspective to look through
You could actually leave then
No one left to hold you back

I would be nothing again
An empty memory you could forget
Maybe something small to look back on
Maybe I'm not even worth that

And as my soul bleeds out these feelings
It's odd to recognize we're still together
Sometimes I feel so alone in this
Other times I know I am

If I were honest with you always
You really wouldn't like me
I say that I support your independence
But I often don't share how much it hurts me
I feel as though I limit myself
In order to uphold your happiness

I said I didn't want you to resent me
For being the reason you're stuck in this town
But I'm also worried I'll resent you
For the regular hurt I feel with our relationship
It's not even your fault
I'm just not made for this love
What you want and what I need
Do not align enough for mutual happiness

I feel like I'm angry at you a lot
And you say you're mad too
When we're together I'm uncomfortable
I don't even know why
I just feel this genuine discomfort
When we sit together in silence
I don't want to be fake
But you want things to be great
I am not ok
And that needs to be ok

We say we want to see each other more
Yet when the day comes
You change your mind
And I'm left alone with myself again
Because I made the choice to not make plans
Because I knew we were supposed to hang out
But things don't always work out
And that's all good and fine
But it doesn't feel that way to me
I'm just sad
And I don't know what to do with it

I feel so angry
And I can't bring myself
To bleed out these feelings
Across this digital landscape
Because of course I'm in love with you

I don't know if I want to be anymore
So I'll let this blood pool

It seems as though
Everyone I am in love with
Causes me the most damage
While the ones I love less
Seem to love me the most

What a disgusting dichotomy
I feel so stuck in this

I love you
I hate you
I want to die
I don't care at all
I'm crying on my porch
I don't understand what to do
I don't know what I need

I say I need space
You turn around and say
It'll make you want to leave me
I guess if it's such an easy thought
Then it doesn't matter that much

And if I leave you myself
Then this will have all been for nothing
All that hurt
And all that love
All of the struggles we pulled through
Thrown away over one night
One "mistake"
That you probably don't see as one

It's as if you don't know me at all
Broken promises cannot be forgotten
Trust and respect
Those are everything to me
My entire existence originates there
You knew I'd be angry
But you chose to continue instead
So why do I even care
If you clearly don't?

I feel so alone
Trapped in this life
To me
Intimacy is defined by trust
And since I have issues with that
I'm simply empty
We were so good at one point
Then things changed
And now I don't trust you
I chose not to see you today
I didn't even want to talk
What's happening to me?
What's happening to us?
I feel like nothing
I am not happy
Yet I don't know what to do about it
I could stay with you
With the hopes of fighting this storm
Or I could leave
And forever question my decision
There is nothing easy about this
Loving you used to be so simple
It used to make so much sense
Now I'm not so sure

I feel like I should write
Though I'm not quite sure what to say
It seems like I feel everything so intensely
Until I try to capture it and it's gone

Words don't seem to work well these days
I'm really not even sure how I'm doing
I feel ready to have a successful week
Yet I also feel heavily disconnected from you

Maybe I am finally accepting my feelings for another
Allowing myself to explore the potential new flame
Maybe I felt held back by your distaste towards her
I realize now that it heavily tints my interactions with her

But it's not about her
And It's not about you
It's honestly about me
And the way I've been living

I have been so consumed by
Our love and all of this polyam drama
That I'm forgetting to live as an actual human
Forgetting that I exist without you too

I know it heavily affects you and
Stresses you out far more than I
So maybe this distance is for you too
Then again, you asked me not to pull away

What else can I do though
When you're consumed by another
And I feel empty and alone too often?
These feelings have led my life far too long already

So I'm stepping up my focus
I am working more on myself again
Because if somehow things get rough
I need to have someone to fall back on

For the first time ever
I've found the healthiest opportunity
The most reliable choice I should've made sooner
And it's me

I am my own foundation
My world exists through my own perception
So in the likely event of some sort of chaos
I am finally ready to catch myself

I will be ok regardless of circumstance
And that's extremely liberating

Free love is hard
But I wouldn't be here
If I didn't love you

I am constantly checking myself
When problematic thoughts enter my mind
Or negative feelings originate in
The messed up ways I've been socialized to think

I do not wish to own anyone or anything
Yet sometimes possessive thoughts plague me
I must remind myself that we are all only humans
Trying to find our best route to happiness

This one article stated that
The hardest part of polyam relationships
Lies in the negotiation between
Your and your partners' needs

So I must always remain on guard
Because the jealousy and sadness coming from within
Was bred by the broken systems we grew up in
And redefining those is a part of my resistance

Monogamy stems from the patriarchy
And sexism lies within that
Possessiveness and jealousy are not cute
They only lead to blaming others for your own inconsistencies

And I am a mess of inconsistencies

I've been searching for the source of these emotions
Because jealousy and other things
Are typically a result of your own perceptions
And it took me awhile to figure it out
I lost some blood along this unknown path
But then I came upon the answers
Because of something my best friend said
And now it all makes sense

I have always had a problem
With investing too much of myself into love
I begin identifying too strongly with the relationship
And any roadblocks feel as though
My entire universe is crashing before me
And looking at this one here
I've done the exact same thing

When we were first together
I told you I needed to continue working on myself
In order to avoid giving you all of my energy
And as soon as I stopped doing that
I fell into old habits

So it makes sense why I feel entirely crazy these days
Why I can consciously recognize that
You having another partner isn't the end of my world
Because you still love me
And I love you undyingly
Yet I still had overwhelming negative cognitions
That made me feel like dying

And now I realize that
In order to deal with these feelings
I have to focus on me again
Recognize that I need to improve myself
For myself
And then this will get easier
Thankfully it already has

Because I love you so much more
When I'm taking care of myself
Because instead of feeling like I have
No real choice but to stay
It now feels like a beautiful privilege
And it truly is