What You Wanted Wasn't Me And I'm Okay With That Right?

I'm Supposed To Be Okay With That

You're okay with it so I'm okay with it.

That's how it's supposed to be, right?

When I said I meant always

I meant always—

I hope you're not doing this because you doubt me

—and that means I love you,

even when I don't want to.

That means I'm happy for you without me.

That means I'm happy for

you with her and for you with a better me.

Right?

But that's the problem.

I guess you solved the puzzle of putting me back together

so now you have to move on to your next pity case.

(I want to tell you that you're a lousy doctor,

but I'm the same and I've played that role for you more.)

Which is me,

then,

me when I remembered you.

Me before there was all of that blood on my hands.

I'm not going to pretend I don't prefer him either.

But I thought when you said you love me,

you meant me,

and not the possessed corpse of your friend.

I thought when you said I am your friend

you weren't addressing his grave.

But you were, you were, you always were.

I was never anything to you, was I?

Except a proxy for the dead man whose name you insisted on calling me.

The name I picked up because you wouldn't let it go,

and hell, it's not like I had any other name to go by.

I was your go-between,

your acceptable compromise.

Be held by something that says it's him,

looks like him,

probably makes a fair pass at being him,

but isn't.

Your “I love you”s were never new.

They were war poems from nearly a century ago.

They were never mine.

They were always his.

And god it tears me up inside because I tried so hard for you.

I would have killed myself hundreds of times over

if you weren't there to worry about me.

Or, I guess

worry about him

not me, because you never worried about me,

because you never loved me,

you only loved him,

and it was awful convenient wasn't it?

You love him so much that you'd take his corpse,

stitched together around blood and metal and

rotten stinking garbage,

and tell it you loved it

because you could close your eyes and pretend it was him.

I guess I didn't realize that what he told you

(what you told me I told you)

was nothing more than “'til death do us part.”

And death did you and him part.

And your love for him is as frozen as he is

as frozen as you were

wild and dead

skin chapped and bleeding and aching

and somewhere along the way

the pain destroyed him and put me in his place.

And you said you loved me and acted it so well

(and I never took you for a good actor

that's not how I remember you

but maybe I'm wrong

and these aren't my memories).

If all my memories are wrong,

and you lied to me when I was trying to unfuck my head,

and you pretended that you loved me

and pretended that I was him.

If that's not true then none of what I remember is true.

So he didn't love you,

he never loved you,

what you did to me here

is what you always were to him.

Pity. A substitute for something better,

something less broken.

Because if these aren't his memories

and these are my fake memories you put in my head

JUST LIKE THEY PUT IT ALL IN MY FUCKING HEAD

then he never loved you and I always did.

From the minute I was born saving you

and building up this idea of who I might have been.

You were my cornerstone, my north star,

and as all stars do,

you burnt out

(on me).

Fuck you.

I wish I didn't love you

as much as I still love you,

as much as I “remembered” loving you,

as much as I manufactured a love for you spanning back a century

while you idled your time playing pretend with my fucking feelings.

I wish you didn't look like him.

I wish you didn't sound like him

and smell like him

and act like him.

Because if I am not the man you said I am,

if I was just your convenient respite,

your port in a storm—

then I never loved you either.

Fuck you.

Fuck you. I wish you were him.

You want to know how this feels?

I wish you were the man you pretended to be.

The man in the memories you made up.

I wish I'd fucking died. I wish you'd fucking died.

You didn't deserve this and the man you pretended I was doesn't deserve a version of you so fucking hateful that you'd dress me up like him and fuck me while thinking of him.

Why would you ever say

“I love you the same as I loved him,

because you are him,

and my love for you is a verb in motion,

a verb spanning decades, the same subject and object,

through thin and through thinner,

you are the one I always closed my eyes and pictured coming home,

you are the one I wanted to wake up next to,

like losing you was a bad dream”

—as if ME losing YOU doesn't hurt more than seventy FUCKING years of torture and abuse—

“and finding you is the only good thing about waking up so far away.

Because we have now,

and we have us,

just like we always have.

And you have me,

and I have you,

just like we always have.

Maybe you don't remember but you were my cornerstone, my missing half

and you will always be the brightest star in my sky.”

Why would you say that to me and mean it for him?

Who the fuck do you think you are?

You think you're some kind of hero?

That's a bigger joke than your “love” for me

(because who could ever love me as I am,

a broken knife cast away because

the evidence would never be found).

You were never a fucking hero.

You were always a goddamn con, a liar, and a cheat.

I'm nothing and even I deserve better than that.

Better than you.

And this is all easier to believe

to think you lied to me all these years

on this side of the century

to think you pretended I was him.

It's easier to believe than