text: 10 The air was stale and warm as I lifted my beer to my lips and took a large gulp having it leave a bitter taste on my tongue. Looking around I could see everyone smiling holding on to someone close. I was alone, but you weren’t. We were young once so naive and innocent, what changed? Why did it have to change? I was happy once so incredibly fucking happy like a kid amped up on sugar on Christmas Eve, but then we got older, and it was like a slap in the face. I miss being young. I miss not having a care in the world. I miss not worrying about how I looked, acted, smelled, weighed. I miss not caring about peoples opinions. I miss not having to hold in my pain throughout the day and crying so hard at night. I miss being able to fall asleep peacefully. I miss knowing the only pain I had could be fixed with a band-aid. I miss letting go and letting positivity take the wheel. I miss saying “I’m tired” and actually meaning I want to sleep. I miss looking out the car window and only seeing how beautiful life is and not the cruelty of it. I miss being able to make friends and being able to have real laughs and smiles. I miss not understanding love and the pain it comes with. I miss having 4th grade crushes and splitting a fruit roll up with them. I miss laying in the grass and thinking about becoming a princess when I grow up. I miss being human. I miss not being broken, but at least I had you right? To hold my hand, kiss my cheek to give me warm hugs telling me everything’s going to be alright. You were my safety net until you weren’t. 9 Pretending to be invisible in a room full of people is a lot easier than you’d expect. So here I am in the corner of a crowded party cradling a warm ass beer close to my chest. It was a pitiful sight. Looking around the room, at all the loving gazes being thrown about made memories I tried to bury come to the surface. Words of false promises and haunting gazes burned my mind. Sometimes...if I focus real hard I can still feel the pressure of your lips against mine, the warmth of your hand against my curves gripping tightly like I was the only thing holding you down to earth. Like I was your lifeline and you were terrified of letting go. oh what a fool I was. 8 I walked towards the balcony coldness seeping into my bones a chillness that not even my coat could stop. I could still hear the sounds of peoples voices mixing together as they counted down. The air smelt like pine as I took a deep shuddering breath the cold making it go white in the night sky. The pine reminded me of your cologne. I hate it. I hate how wherever I go something always reminds me of you. It’s like I can never escape you no matter how hard I try. Maybe I just need to try harder to forget the indent you left on my heart or maybe the reason why I still can’t forget the taste of you on my lips is because some part of me refuses to realize you let me go. 7 I don’t even want to be at this party, but I guess it beats staying at home with only a bucket of loneliness and a soft serve of pain for company. Deciding I couldn’t take on any more of the frigid air I tread back into the crowded living room. The buzz of excitement is still fresh in the air as I let my eyes trail against everybody’s faces. So many lives so many stories, and yet I couldn’t tell you one thing about anyone here even if I tried. I’m not sure why I even agreed to come here especially when I knew there might’ve been a chance you would show...or maybe that is why I’m here, a subconscious decision I made full of hope and yet here I am nursing a warm beer trying to keep my emotions under wraps, so I don’t break like a porcelain doll. It’s fucking pathetic. I’m fucking pathetic. 6 I move further through the crowd my eyes flickering towards the corner of the t.v. 10 seconds never felt more like 10 years. I found myself siting on a dark green couch with two people next to me that looked 3 seconds away from committing public indecency. I trail my hand against of the arm rest picturing it was your arm inste-fuck I need to stop doing this shit. I chuckled bitterly against my glass bottle. Swallowing what little remained I tried to rear back my emotions, but it seemed impossible at this point. I hate how I miss you. I hate how you said “I love you” and promised things so easily like it was nothing, like I meant nothing. You played me like a fool and I let you. I wish I could go back and do things differently. I wish I could’ve seen what was going to happen. I wish I saw the signs. I wish I knew what changed why you changed. We were so happy so in love, it was like you flipped a switch overnight and the next morning I could barely recognize you. Peoples voices snapped me out of my little pity party as they gradually got louder when the last 5 seconds finally came into view, so I decided to join them. 5 Letting my eyes fall quickly to the Aztec beige rug I looked up and my breathing hitched, my body tensed, my mind went blank because not even 10 feet away there you were. Even from here I could see those warm brown eyes flaked with gold. How could something so warm turn out to be so cold? My skin felt like it was on fire and it wasn’t because of the alcohol. You have a beard now it’s different compared to the clean-shaven face you had 3 months ago. I never liked it. It was like my eyes couldn’t leave your body they were stuck on your silhouette. You must’ve felt someone staring at you because you turned around and looked, but you didn’t find me. No one does. My heart was close to beating out of my chest and I prayed to god you left my line of sight, but then I saw movement next to you. A hand grabbed yours her hair swirled and my heart dropped. You looked at her with such intensity it felt intruding to watch. I squeezed my hands shut to stop them from shaking as I looked at you both. 3 months ago that was me and now it’s not. I couldn’t stop the rage from creeping into my soul at the sight. I hate you. 4 I hate you so much. You hurt me. you hurt me in a way that I will never forget. You put me in a place I never wanted to be in and it only you took 3 months to get over something that lasted 5 years. But I don’t hate you as much as I hate myself for still loving you. I’m sorry I wasn’t enough. I’m sorry I couldn’t be the person you wanted. The person you needed. I hope she is. I hope she’s everything I’m not. Because as much as I want to hate as much as I want to never hear your name uttered from anybody’s lips. You’ll always hold a special place in my heart and I will hate myself for it with very fiber in my bones. My eyes watered and my breathing shook, the crowd felt suffocating I needed to leave. Rising to my shaking legs I rushed towards the exit pushing past the screaming crowd. Before i could get any farther than the edge of the living room my coat got stuck on a side table which forced me to tun around right as he did. 3 He stared at me 2 I stared back 1 The ball dropped. Screams erupted all around me. the surrounding colors blurred the world spun and then you kissed her and the hot tears I desperately tried to keep at bay all night fell down my cheeks. I briefly remember someone hugging me throughout all the chaos, but I didn’t even feel it because all I could feel was my heart breaking all over again by you. We locked eyes from across the room for the last time tonight before I finally fled a sobbing mess and maybe just maybe if I looked a little closer I would’ve realized you had tears in your eyes too.