It's a cold and it's a broken hallelujah.

I believed, for a little bit, that I was beginning to tread the road that would lead me to betterment. So much for that.

Your name has been plastered everywhere... and it seriously doesn't help that little details like that trigger the most intense nostalgia I could only curse at the moment. I don't really hate it, but the frequency with which it happens is something that leaves less to be desired on me.

Your name. How is it even possible that your name pasted on someone else's first, middle, or last identity automatically sets my brain off and directly leads me back to thoughts off you. The mere mention of it, although knowingly not in direct reference to you, brings about a sizable significance that throws me. Seriously. It's that bad.

I'm in cyclical motion again. Here I thought I'd gone through the worst and for a few moments I had begun to take comfort in the fact that thinking of you and the memories didn't sting as much they used to. But apparently, once they come in untimely consecutive intervals they begin to jab at me like eleven hundred throw daggers all at once. It was like that before, it's like that again now.

Frankly, it's beginning to annoy the living lights out of my good sense.

I mean really, how hard is it to get over you? It shouldn't be this taxing. By now, I should be able to gingerly smile at the moments we held together. By now, the itch and urge to dial that oh-so-familiar number shouldn't be around. By now, the wind's whisper of your name shouldn't have to immediately up and scoot me right towards sentimental memory lane.

But it happens still.

And here I thought that if I were to just let it ride, the tide would eventually tire out and I'd come out of it in a flash. But no. I'm here, drifting aimlessly in a sea where I could dangerously drown into depths of unwanted longing.

Please, I think it's been made clear on more than one occasion that I am not wanted in your life anymore. I've accepted that, and yes it doesn't make it any less painful but I sure as hell have learned to deal with it. But dammit, why must you keep on haunting me?

Why must every evening be filled with you for last thoughts and every morning with you as the first?

My senses are adamantly persuading me to stop and my willpower is almost on the verge of a nervous breakdown just trying to keep me sane. But my stupid, stupid hear just refuses to give in to what I'm really supposed to be doing.

I'm ready to heal now. I can say that for sure.

Bits of me may still be holding on to what most probably is a false hope, but my better self is more than ready to move forward.

Show me a sign that'll make me stop. Slap me with a big billboard that says just give up.

It'll be easier that way.

At least, with that, I truly know where I stand.

Then I can freely make my next move.

ROAR.

I'm mad.

Fuming.

Enraged.

Pissed off.

Angry.

Hating.

Loathing.


And here I thought the whole adolescent "No One Understands Me" cliche has outplayed itself.

Guess I thought wrong.

Nobody in the vicinity of my surroundings has enough emotional compassion to even remotely try to understand what it is that's eating at my insides. Not even now and I doubt if they'll come around to understanding me.

But whatever.

I walk alone anyway. So none of that makes a difference.

The anger will pass.

Though I doubt the pain will.

...

As the song says, I'm torn.

It's been about a week since I turned a year, and it feels only slightly different from before.

I'm still ripped at the seams, and I still can't find a way to fully let it all go. It's been very difficult for me, but I've been trying. Hard.

I still find myself going back to the year that passed, those moments by the river, those times at the park, the first kiss and the ones after that, the first night and the warmth of it all, the petty arguments, the hearty laughs, the sitting spot, the long train rides, the mindless wandering, the apple martinis and smoothie margaritas. I remember them all in hi-def detail, especially in my dreams.

Which is why I've taken to inebriation... because for the past months or so, the sweet dreams have hurt just as much as bitter reality has. And if I'm being honest, coming home intoxicated enough to head straight into a dreamless sleep has become a comfort of sorts to my bleeding heart and aching mind. I wake up feeling like a gerbil died in my mouth and an elephant is sitting on my head, but that works... because for a few moments, the physical overrides the deeper emotional ache.

It's been months and I still continue to do this. The mother asks me if I'm becoming something she should be worrying about. I've told her again and again that there's no need for it. And in truth, there really isn't no cause for worry.

Because even if at the moment it seems as though I'm self-destructing due to scorned love, as society labels it, that actually isn't the case.

The real score is that I am only doing this until the invisible tears dry... and they are beginning to.

I have to let them dry on their own, because forcing the issue would only mean a higher risk of me slipping back. Knowing myself, that would be bound to happen. So, now, I'll take the slow route... ease the pain out of my system one slow ballad and one dreamless night at a time.

Because at a moment, precisely one week ago... I looked at myself in the mirror... and I finally convinced myself to let it all go.

The steps will be steep, and from moment to moment thoughts of before will still escape the back of my mind and rise to the surface, but I'll take it as it is. It might depress me, but what won't kill me will only make me better.

In spite of it all, yes, I'm still torn right about now.

But being torn is still a step towards me being whole again.