Unfollowing You

by Komal Kapoor

  If you want to be with me

  you will make it happen;

  there is no bad timing

  just excuses.

  I didn’t know you wear glasses,

  you say.

  Only for reading, I reply,

  wondering

  who have you been looking at

  all this time.

  Your attention is manic

  I wither away, like a peony

  under darkened skies

  forgetting the touch of your light

  for long stretches at a time,

  yet I await your return.

  How can someone like you

  like someone like me?

  you ask.

  How are you fine

  handing me all your sorrows

  unwilling to take any of mine?

  You lost signal

  in the middle of the sentence.

  I waited by the phone

  yet you never called back,

  but I saw updates

  on your Instagram.

  I have been swallowing

  these words for far too long

  I just need to say aloud

  I love you.

  I have been hurt before,

  you reply.

  Can we take it slow?

  I care for you.

  I understand,

  I lie.

  Who needs labels?

  you ask.

  Let’s just get to know each other.

  Sure,

  I lie

  when I should say

  goodbye.

  And like last-minute work

  skipped workouts

  decent bedtime,

  leaving you becomes

  another thing I put off.

  In the end,

  it is the things I do willingly

  that weigh on me most.

  Love leaves in missed good mornings

  and forgotten coffee orders;

  it is always the small things

  that matter most.

  My desire for you grew

  yours for me faltered

  and that should have

  been the end.

  I understand the comfort

  in empty promises.

  Like drinking Shasta,

  pretending it’s Coca-Cola.

  I question

  your intentions

  never

  your goodness.

  I pour happiness

  to water your soul

  but nothing works

  I must let you go

  I cannot bear it anymore,

  how you love

  your sadness more.

  It is a constant battle:

  walking towards

  walking away

  from you.

  I miss you, you say.

  I convince myself,

  you just need more time.

  I cannot love you

  I will not love you

  I shall not love you

  these silent reveries

  stay with me all day

  because I can tell

  this love will destroy me

  and though

  it is nothing I cannot survive

  I am too tired

  to keep this uncertainty alive

  so just leave

  or stay

  whichever you choose,

  do it all the way.

  I am drowning

  in the shallow waters

  of your affection.

  There should have been more.

  There is a light felt in the embrace of love

  a cozy pastel or shimmery gold

  but you are neon red

  the pause-and-go of a fast-food joint

  your words synthetic sweet

  infused with corn syrup lies;

  there is nothing natural about you

  your freshly thawed words

  dished out in mass supply.

  I’m lovin’ you, you say

  to every new bae, I learn too late.

  If I had paid more attention

  I would’ve tasted your artificial ways.

  Even as greener pastures beckon

  I want to stay for just one more taste;

  a glutton for your temporary love,

  this naive sin nourishes me today.

  You reach for me in your sadness and

  I forget I cannot lift you out of it

  I forget you want to pull me down

  just for the company.

  Intimacy makes friendships stronger,

  you say.

  The man karaokeing on stage gets louder

  Good times never seem so good, he drones on

  I look around, wondering if someone would

  tell the man he’s singing too loud

  the man must know, he’s in the wrong.

  We should go to my place,

  you say.

  I feel the salt at the back of my throat

  threatening to pour out,

  then pity pricks my eyes as I realize

  you are missing the point of it all, this life

  the bliss in calling one person your own.

  I imagined

  a hundred things

  I wanted to do with you.

  You imagined

  a hundred things

  you wanted to do to me.

  Sorry I placed so much

  value on your words.

  You see,

  I thought you meant them.

  Time with you now feels

  like a trip to Taco Bell;

  great in the moment

  regretful the next day.

  I missed you, you’d say

  even though we’d texted

  all day.

  Back when you remembered

  the things I told you

  and asked questions,

  quickly learning

  about me.

  When you have me

  you cannot be bothered

  to look my way.

  Do you remember

  when we fell in love?

  I do.

  The memories are

  the only thing

  that keep me tethered

  as we drift apart.

  But I am learning,

  slowly learning,

  those are not enough.

  I untie their knots around me,

  slowly learning

  the art of moving on.

  Madness is no notifications

  and a Read.

  Humans should come with

  macronutrients & warning labels

  Yours:

  35% goodness

  65% evil

  9 grams of kindness

  32 grams of bullshit

  Beware: dangerous to consume,

  lethal to love.

  Well dear, I suppose

  you don’t really know me

  for all you do

  is talk about you.

  Slowly,

  you seem to be

  like everyone else in the city.

  Looking over my shoulder

  to see who else is in the room.

  Wanting to be

  someplace more exciting,

  with someone more exciting.

  I begin to envy

  the bald eagles,

  the alliga
tors

  whose monogamy

  comes without thought.

  I am a master at self-deception;

  I believe in your words of love

  even as I stare at your eyes of lust.

  I am not ready for a commitment,

  you say.

  I am sorry.

  The silence is dense

  with condensation from your words

  clinging to our faces,

  a rotten-sweet stench envelops us.

  You look away from me and

  I wonder if you can feel

  the quake in my chest,

  if you can hear

  the roar of my heart.

  You sit silently,

  I feel each limb fall apart.

  Yet I stand up, willing my organs

  to continue functioning, my bones

  to remain twined and carry me out.

  I have no words left

  perhaps my swollen tongue

  may never utter another word again.

  I gather up my limbs

  and organs and bones

  and hope and dignity and love

  and drag them out the door.

  I extended my world to you

  shyly, heaving under its weight.

  How casually you turned it down,

  like extra butter on popcorn.

  .

  .

  .

  {only monsters do that;

  now you know what I think of you}

  I envy people who can talk of love

  calmly, casually

  like discussing a favorite app or brand,

  as if it is something everyone has.

  You said sorry without

  understanding why,

  that is when I should’ve known

  I needed to let you go.

  Sweetly, profusely

  you always apologized.

  His work is difficult, I’d say,

  he is so sorry.

  They shook their heads

  and muttered, Again?

  And then there were

  too many missed dates

  and forgotten promises.

  I had to admit,

  your apologies were a blanket

  to smother my questions.

  I had to admit

  you never cared to know

  what was wrong.

  I had to admit

  you never intended to stay.

  Some nights I stay up wondering

  what you are escaping or looking for

  in the different beds you spend your time.

  Are you trying to forget

  the pain of a love unreturned

  or are you searching for an old lover

  in new faces every night?

  Tell me, why wasn’t I enough?

  I am not your vacation home,

  your place away from reality.

  I’m flesh, blood, feelings, emotions,

  not a piece of realty.

  Don’t ever forget that.

  I see updates of you

  in rooms I no longer recognize,

  Insta stories with strangers

  {new baes, I wonder?}

  Even offline

  you remain on my mind.

  Maybe what hurts most

  is how easy I was to get over.

  How you have another

  before the goodbye has begun.

  Look what you made me do:

  Tinder Reactivated

  Others are gentle and listen

  caring I have never known,

  yet my heart races

  only at thoughts of you.

  I am trying to learn

  how to mourn

  the loss of something

  that never really was.

  I am insufferable to be around;

  I get myself drunk on thoughts of you

  and vomit out words of us

  from an imagination overused.

  I worry about unfilled cravings

  uncorrected mistakes,

  I worry about me, without you.

  I have photos of you, of us

  tucked away beneath jumbled socks.

  There is one of you writing at that diner

  we sat at for hours.

  I cannot see your eyes but your smile,

  I look at it when I’m blue.

  Did you keep mine too?

  Send me some, I want to see

  what you captured of me.

  That is who I am, that me with you.

  I would rather be remembered

  through your eyes

  than mine.

  Stray glances and last-minute hangs,

  the signs were there all along

  I chose to ignore gut instinct

  and carried on with fledgling hope—

  I saw so much of me in you.

  I waited for you to recognize

  what we had was special

  maybe, different,

  but you had blindfolds on as well.

  It must have been in my most

  egotistical of moods

  when I believed you loved me too.

  When they ask you about love,

  does my name ever come up?

  I swallow words,

  sticky sour

  like mornings of beer

  and tobacco aftertastes.

  Sticky sour words

  that turn into land mines

  when kept too long

  words exploding, uncaring

  of celebrations or joy,

  of time or resolve.

  Sticky sour words

  that I cannot scrape off.

  Do not ask questions

  for which answers

  you aren’t prepared to hear

  —I remind myself.

  But in the not knowing

  I find my madness.

  Maybe the hardest part

  is letting myself feel the pain,

  acknowledging

  you had meant something

  we had meant something.

  At least to me.

  Despite it all, I admire your work;

  how beautifully you destroyed

  first my walls, then me.

  It is the silences I miss the most:

  driving down winding lanes

  destination unknown,

  inhaling the crispness of trees

  sitting on bar stools

  with music too loud for conversation,

  lying slumped against my staircase

  unable to speak all the words

  corroding my insides.

  You were always there

  and my silences had a home.

  In moments of stillness

  it is still your page I refresh.

  Your love had a

  limited vocabulary.

  Your wants.

  Your needs.

  There were no

  words in your dictionary

  defining how to love me.

  You never claimed to love me,

  I thank you for that.

  In the end, I blame myself

  for believing something

  never said.

  Now I am left with doubt

  on what was truly felt.

  Your words were like poetry

  {or maybe your lips}

  you knew how to swing

  the pendulum of emotion


  sometimes like Neruda

  sometimes like Poe

  at times, we were a fairy tale

  at times, a horror show.

  I hoarded your love

  from the very beginning

  as if I knew

  it’d be in limited supply.

  Hundreds of photos of you

  of us

  numbering far more

  than the days we spent together

  a box full of memorabilia.

  I have made something

  out of the nothings you gave me.

  I am good at giving meaning

  to words that held no feeling

  to things that were meant to be

  discarded from the beginning

  I am too good at trying on love

  that was never my fit.

  I break my own heart a few times

  before understanding it is over.

  I wake up excited, forgetting

  the empty side, the parted lover.

  Let me be clear, I did not need you;

  but oh how much I wanted you.

  I now see how unoriginal our love was:

  you—full of pickup lines

  me—a bundle of poetry.

  I took responsibility

  for your emotions,

  that was my mistake.

  You let me,

  and that was yours.

  It feels unfair,

  the act of will

  required to leave you

  when falling in love

  was never a choice.

  The brain is inaccurately

  likened to an operating system.

  See if this was an OS

  I could block certain terms

  like your name,

  from popping in memory

  a defaulted screensaver

  when my brain is on pause.

  It should be a universal law:

  when two people are together

  their love for each other must equal out.

  Maybe like gravity or motion

  perhaps finite math—anything tangible.