The Leftover

Since you left me, I know I have lost myself.

I have lost that self that was sure about the return. I believed everything returns; the good and the bad, the happiness and the sorrow. Now, I have stopped believing in the phenomenon of 'give and receive'.

How could you not call me back when you had promised you would?

How could I not receive my love back what I had given you unconditionally?

How could I not…?

Your voice still gives a jolt to my heart. I know you are nowhere there, except inside the players I have captured your voice in, expect in the pictures that you are trapped in, except in the words that I have locked you in, except in the memories that I couldn’t block you in. 

I know you are nowhere around but you haunt me. You have become that ghoul I always fear. I feared your presence and how horrifying it is, I fear your absence as well. 

Days passed, months flew by and years did the same but you haunt me still today. 

Acceptance is surreal. I have moved on. I am in a happy place, yet the moment you left haunts me. I fear to lose again. I have grown anxious. I miss my independent self that feared nothing; nothing at all. Even your absence didn’t matter then, then why does it matter now? 

I even fear to answer the rhetorical questions I ask. 

Was it that I didn’t love you?

Or, was it that I loved you so bad and never will be able to love again?

Or, is it I am madly in love now and fear what it actually is to lose someone you truly love? 

I chose to accept. I choose to accept. I will choose to accept. 

Albeit, there are traces of you that haunts me now and then. You creep inside me. 

I fear. 

I tremble. 

I feel lost. 

I feel I am no more myself; my independent self. 

I sometimes feel you are still around me. I am skeptical about the sight of that burning pyre. I feel I am sitting in an exam where I am being tested of my patience.

"How long can you resist my absence?"

You question me. 

I am being graded. 

I stayed. I stayed until I could. 

But then now let me go back to myself; that fluttering self which roamed around searching her alone time. I don’t like this anxiety. I am fearful of this anxious attachment. I am fearful of this ifs and buts. I am fearful to lose once again. And you are the reason for it. Stop judging my patience. Stop haunting me. 

With your loss, I lost a part of me. 

Rebirth of that part has made me whole again but sometimes I hate this anxious incarnation of me. I want to return to that avoidant self who loved everyone unconditionally then too but let them be on their own. Because I knew they would call me back. But you didn’t and that changed everything. 

Here again, I accept the leftover from your absence.