YOU

Every time I think I finally understand our relationship, you do something to send me back to square one. I know you don't do it intentionally. It doesn't take much: a phone call, a memory, seeing a mutual friend, and I'm confused all over again.

You were my first love. When we met we were both nineteen, scattered and immature. Our attraction was instantaneous, our relationship brief and tumultuous with an explosive conclusion. Somehow we managed to maintain a friendship that has lasted almost a decade. Over that time my love for you has never died; if anything it seems to have grown stronger. It confuses me sometimes, because I can't understand how I can love you so deeply, but still have relationships with other men. I finally decided that maybe my love for you is just the love of one friend for another, that we don't need to be a couple for me to love you.

Sometimes we go long periods without talking, often for months. We haven't actually seen each other in over a year, even though we live just 30 minutes from one another. But when I hear your voice ,my world goes off it's axis. And it's as if you have this radar, like you know when to appear. Whenever I start dating or have a boyfriend, suddenly you resurface. Even when I think I'm secure with the relationship I'm in, the sight of you, the sound of your voice makes me question myself and my feelings.

There are moments when I think you feel the same. Comments you make, insinuations. Why can't you just say it, say that you want me? Why do you keep me wondering? I don't want to believe that you know the depth of my feelings for you and that you're just toying with my emotions to stroke your own ego.

Why am I doing this? Why does this hurt so much? I wish I could just make a decision and stay with it: friends or more than friends. I wish my love for you would just settle down, and not permeate my life. Perhaps I can't shake this because I haven't really met anyone that I could truly have a serious relationship with. Or maybe I just have too many relationship issues and the idea of being with you is easier than actually having to work at a relationship with someone else. Or maybe I'm just a sadomasochist; this roller coaster has kept me in painful disorientation, but I keep coming back.

The bottom line is that if you really wanted me, if you loved me like I love you, you would have shown me long ago. You've had relationships, a few long term. But you've never once tried to be with me.

I have to make this stop. The ony person crying and confused is me.

I wish I didn't love you.