Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

I am hurt.

I am hurt. Let me repeat that as many times as I want to.

I think ‘hurt’ is an understatement. More like, you know, broken.

So there’s this guy that I talked to when I started working in Singapore. Obviously, the courtship started online – not that I mind. I have extremely bad memories when it comes to names, places, and time. But I remember everything else.

I ghosted his for close to two months – not very nice of me, I know. I was in the mood to be a to everyone else because I hated the world for what I felt. I held myself in low-esteem, and in turn, I lashed out all of my insecurity and hatred towards everyone else. He was the only one who came back. He was the only one who popped up in the screen of my phone when I was at my low, tired, lonely, in need of a kind hand. He was there despite all of the words I said to him, and that was when I decided that maybe, he was the one I was looking for all along: someone who would stick with me through thick and thin.

This guy likes pizza. He doesn’t eat sweets though, except for dark chocolate.

He listens to XXXTentacion because the lyrics speaks to him in length.

Sometimes his eyes are very, very sad. Like his soul is irreparable, and his body is a little too heavy to carry now. I wish, on most days, to heal him, but I had a demon to fight on my own.

He has very impeccable fashion sense – just the way that I like, although sometimes I wish he owns more short-sleeve shirts because that way, I can trace his fingers easily with mine, and feel the warmth of his skin against the coldness of my skin.

He smiles like he is always amused about things – like there is some degree of innocence beneath that sadness. On most days, his lips hid the darkness of his heart – not in a bad way. I think he just needs to fill the void inside, and I want to be the ink he pours to cover up that loneliness. When he laughs – and he doesn’t do that often – I feel light and merry, like for that split second, I am fine, I am good, I am happy. Because he is, too.

I have major trust issues. Sometimes coupled with anxiety attacks. Those are the days when I feel low. I survived depression last year with a few very deeply-embedded scars on my soul. Like maybe I won’t find love again because I don’t deserve it. That everyone leaves me when they see how rotten and fragile and weak I am in love. That this pain, this heartbreak will repeat itself and last forever. None of the people in my life ever calmed me down when the storm came. Most days I held it in. Even my best friends and those beloved to me didn’t know what I felt. It was with this guy that I shared the darkest, ugliest part of me: the part that I was jealous, the part where I was extremely scared of losing him, the part where I missed him terribly – more than I’d like to admit. These are the things I had never told anyone before.

Maybe I took him for granted. A part of me wanted to know how he would hold onto me if I’m being difficult, but in the end, I lost him all the same. I told him in the beginning that my ex would be my best friend, and I couldn’t date anyone who couldn’t understand that. I could tell that thathad hurt him, but to what extent, I would never know. I didn’t know when he became an important part of my life, or when I had started liking him so much, but the moment that I told him I loved him, that I was ready for a relationship, that I would let go of my ex completely from my life, was the moment he let me go. It was too late for a second chance.

I am hurt.

This pain, unlike anything I’ve felt after my first heartbreak, is numbing. I swear God, damn, it hurts too much. I cried inside the bus, in my office, in front of my co-workers, friends, bosses, because at one point, the pain was unbearable and the dam inside me broke and I couldn’t breathe.

Sometimes I wonder, you know. How do we live on with our hearts breaking every moment? I’m still looking for answers because I’m hurting and I want to stop this damage before I’m completely gone. Right now, I’m living with half of my heart still intact. The other half gone to waste land. I’m taking a break from dating. At least until I stopped seeing him in every person that I meet. Maybe it will take a very long time to heal. But for now, I’m not going to see anyone else anymore. This is where I’m done.