We said it so many times we called it 10%, because it felt like “I love you” was 10% of all we say to each other. Every day, I love you, I love you, I love you, a balm I’ll never grow tired of but, underneath it all, became a noose around your neck. We’ll stick to easy games; no tag, no red rover, no hopscotch, nothing that involves touching or thinking about you. Finger painting, maybe, that’s an activity we can do together now that cuddling and sex are off the table. My best friend has a sex painting. She and her partner poured black paint on a canvas and fucked on top of it. When I spent the night in her guest room last week it loomed over the bed, a reminder of what I could have, but haven’t. Yet. Maybe years from now I’ll call all of this, and all of these men, just distractions. You aren’t my person, turns out. I won’t have my forever with you. So get out of my way.

Today’s poetry prompt words were: underneath it all, finger painting, and distractions.

_{Photo by Darwin Vegher on Unsplash}

I never thought it would end like this.

I was counting on it to end eventually, I just have this “if it’s too good to be true it’s because it is” mentality, and maybe that is manifesting negativity into my life, I dunno, but I was not very hopeful for us.

Six years is a long time. A long time to be with one person and no one else, a long time to dedicate to a love and relationship only to have it be tossed away like it was nothing.

Like it was a burden, a chore.

I miss feeling like I have a partner, even if I know now I never did before. I miss cuddles, I miss holding hands, I miss sex, I miss talking without hostility or stress.

What did he miss?

I guess everything that came before me.

I guess I can never live up to all of that.