Kirsten Corley
When they are toxic goodbye seems like a foreign word, as you run in circles with one another. Because it’s never just goodbye when it ends. It’s someone always coming back around. It’s the apology they’ve mastered and forgiving so many times, that even when it pains you whatever they’ve done now, it doesn’t even hurt.
It’s dangerous when someone hurts you so much that the pain they cause doesn’t even faze you anymore. When the disappointments become something to expect. When you make plans being surprised if they actually follow through. When the foundation of your expectations with this person is not a matter of if but when the other shoe will drop.
When will their personality change from caring about you at one moment and pushing you away from the next? Where suddenly whatever has gone wrong in their life is a result of something you’ve done and the more you try and make it right the more damage you cause.
You pull them in close and try and love them but they are emotionally unavailable so you try harder being convinced love is something you should earn. And you think it’s love because you’ve invested so much time and energy and emotions into this thing.
It’s a whirlwind of chaos and intense emotions you become addicted to. It’s like you don’t even know what a normal relationship is like after them because someone texting you back, someone keeping their word, someone treating you well and not using you becomes foreign to you.
And you try and keep a brave face like it isn’t affecting you as greatly as it is. But with toxic relationships, it destroys you from the inside out. And you don’t even see the lasting effect it has.
It’s your eyes that grow dull with a blank look.
It’s a heart that is constantly broken.
It’s the words you don’t speak and silence and loneliness become familiar because you’re alone again.
It’s questioning everyone because when the one person you trusted most deceives you, you don’t even know how to build yourself back up after that.
It’s looking at your reflection and you don’t appreciate and love yourself the way you used to simply because the love you gave wasn’t enough for someone.
Because you at your best still fell short of everything they wanted even though you tried so hard to be it.
And you did everything you possibly could, only to lose yourself trying to keep someone who was never going to be yours.
You wanted to believe there were an actual connection there and feelings.
You wanted to believe in the false promises and the one days.
You wanted to believe every conversation meant as much to you as it did them and it wasn’t just something to kill time.
Then they became a habit. A part of your everyday routine. Someone who made you look forward to things but someone who also had the ability to ruin your best day.
An ignored text. Walking by you like your a stranger. Saying some snide comment and knowing exactly how to get under your skin.
