Oxygen.

• 31st May 2016
• 4

I began writing about him since the day he left.

I wrote miles of words; strung into sentences, heartbreaking paragraphs and poems that don’t rhyme in the hopes that one day,

a word or a strategically-placed semicolon would tug at his heartstrings and he would come back.

I wrote of him as the very air that I breathe. The axis of my universe. The reason for my existence.

But now, I don’t see him in that way anymore.

Turns out he wasn’t oxygen. I realised that I could draw breath in his absence without that sharp pain in my chest.

Turns out that all this time, I thought that I needed him someone anyone to save me from drowning

but the truth is I was only knee deep in a wading pool.

Turns out he wasn’t anything above ordinary, he was just a boy.

A silly boy who did something dumb one day: like send me a random message telling me that he likes me, kissed me, promised me an Australian permanent residency and happily ever after.

When I removed those rose-tinted glasses, I saw clearly that he was just a boy who didn’t want to be with me anymore.

But all the places where he had cut me with his indifference didn’t end up scarring – there were only bruises.

I’ve learnt that it’s alright when someone gives up on you because what he took for granted, someone else is praying for.

It’s difficult but the heart is a resilient thing. It heals and mends itself. And in time, it will be capable of love again.

Don’t trust the mind.

It’s unreliable. It tricks you with nostalgia, making you believe that the past was better than it really was.

The day after you, I learn that I was whole.

That there is no need to walk around looking for the proverbial half to complete me because

I have always been whole.

And I will always be whole.

_{“Rome is built on ruins and it is quite breathtaking.
What makes you think that you can’t be too? “}