Despite It All

I don’t understand how someone like you could leave such a mark on me.

After everything we have been through—the arguments that left us angry, the moments that reduced us to silence, the happiness we once shared, and the sadness we never quite knew how to speak about —I still wonder how you became someone I cannot simply stop caring about.

While I was left alone with silence that lingered, you were somewhere else, speaking about me behind my back, digging the knife deeper, and turning my name into something I barely recognized.

You knew I was hurting, yet you never seemed to pity me. You never wondered whether I was okay.

And perhaps that should have been enough. It should have been enough to let the hurt harden into resentment until you became nothing but a memory.

But then I saw you alone.

And despite every reason I had to walk away, despite every wound you had left behind,  something inside me still ached at the sight of you.

I despised that feeling.

Because why should I feel sorry for someone who never felt sorry for me?

Why should I care about someone who has made it crystal clear that I meant nothing to them?

You have hurt me in ways I still carry quietly. You have made me cry more times than I would ever admit; there were moments when I wondered whether my absence would even matter to you.

Yet when I saw you standing alone, I couldn’t bring myself to feel satisfied.

I could not look at you and think,

You deserve this.

Instead, all I could think was,

I hope you’re okay.

And I don’t know what is more painful—
the things you did to me, or the fact that they were never enough to make me stop caring about you.

You are, without a doubt, one of the worst people I have ever met.

And still, somewhere within me, remains an impossibly soft place that belongs to you.

I wish I understood why.

Maybe it is because I remember who you were before everything got complicated. Despite everything that happened, a part of me still refuses to let the bad diminish the good.

Maybe I am simply someone who finds it painfully difficult to stop loving what once mattered to me— even when it has already turned into something that hurts.

And now, as we are slowly drifting apart, I thought distance would make things easier. I thought that the farther we became from each other, the less I would care.

Instead, I find myself noticing your absence in places I never expected.

It is strange to lose someone who is still alive, somewhere in the world, beyond my reach—it feels as though a part of my life has quietly vanished.

Maybe I don’t miss you.

Maybe I miss what we used to be.

Maybe I miss the version of you I once trusted without hesitation.

Or maybe the truth is much simpler but much more painful,

I still care about you.

Even after everything.

Even when I know I shouldn’t.

Even when you gave me every reason not to.

That is the one thing about myself I find incredibly difficult to understand—how can someone break your heart and still be the one you can’t bear to see hurt?