i am (no longer) in love

last conversation with joel yesterday evening was genuinely enlightening. it hurt a bit to come to certain realizations, but hurt has been always part of the process. hurt, for me, meant mostly, that there is something wrong and that there needs to be a change.

i am in love.

i have been for more than a year now. madly. deeply. terribly.

i have been so much in love, it gives me insomnia at night. i find myself awake, dazed, and devoid of conscious thought. i am intoxicated. my body reliving a billion and one hypothetical scenarios of a life that could have been. countless scenarios i can only allow my subconsciousness to experience in my lethargy.

i have been so much in love that all memories of him, his smell, his touch, his voice, haunts me. they elicit a knee-jerk reaction for me to clam up, retreat and detach for i have been trying for so long to get over him.

i have been so much in love that, i had thought, loving another would save me... that it would help me, finally, move on, only for it to disturb my repressed past and unleash the same haunting memories of him again.

i have been so much in love... it now scares me greatly to love again.

i find myself now in a rather deplorable situation. in my delusion that i am fine, i had unfortunately dragged in an innocent. i had subjected him to this roller coaster and had left him as disoriented... almost the same as how i was when i was trying to come to terms that the one i so dearly love cannot be mine. almost as how i am still right now.

i hope you do not hate me for this. but even if you do, i will be man enough to take it. i however have been honest with you from the start, and my hesitations have always been present. i asked you before, that i would gladly want to be your second best friend. i am still faithful to that request.

i will no longer apologize. i have done enough of that already. i think now, i have to apologize to myself, for allowing me to drag on a love for so long, it had overwhelmed me. all my actions, apparently, have been centered to numbing me of that feeling. i have to now, i have to give it my last and final embrace, and then.... really, let it go.

i love you. i love you so much i hurt every time. i love you so much, i found value in the pain i was willing to experience in honor of my love for you... because i cannot have you... even if i could... even if you were already willing to be mine. THAT IS WHY I RELIVE MY LOVE FOR YOU AGAIN AND AGAIN... because you really could have been mine. because you could have been my first. because i would have made you the last. because i know i would be good to you. because i know you will be good to me too. because even in my moral convolutions of how God loves me and how my faith doesn't condone homosexuality, i could find nothing wrong with my feelings for you. because my love for you was pure. because i believed God gave it to me. because i believe God gave you to me.

because i believe God gave you to me.... and He had taken you now away.... and i now have to learn, to accept, and believe in something new again. i am frightened of the new. my faith is being tested once more.

goodbye. thank you so very much for everything. i have to leave you now. you have to leave me too. i don't think i can be you ahya anymore.