For Those Who Have Loved Me

"My mother asked me today, 

With all the boys who have been drawn to me, as moths are drawn to a candle flickering flame, 

Why am I so certain that no one will ever love me the way I ache to be loved? 

What she fails to realize is that none of them are ships I care to attach my sinking anchor to. 

They are broken and so am I. 

From the messed up fighter with the broken past who drank to forget his insomnia and the nightmares of his abusive past - 

To the ex-druggie pervert who won my trust through claiming I was like a little sister to him and then shattered it all to ask for nudes and friends with benefits - 

To the manipulator who played daily mind games and chose to love me one day and detest me the next with mixed messages and scrambled signals - 

To the one who was convinced God had told him to profess his love to me, and refused to take no for an answer, claiming dreams where I died as reason for his stalkerish tendencies and his bizarre conviction that he had cast Legion out of his family - 

To the effeminate, depressed, shy, and awkward brainiac mathematician who turned to me for emotional support while breaking up with my best friend - 

To the initially sweet bipolar pothead, who refused to stop sending me shirtless pictures and manipulated me into talking to him by threatening to slice open his skin, and guilt tripped me extensively - 

To the self styled psychopath, who deliberately self harmed out of boredom, water boarding himself and refusing to allow me space -

To the boy who consistently invaded the girls dressing room, touching me, and ramming the handle of his gun prop into my side - 

To the one who had killed and tortured countless, tried to kill himself repeatedly, and whose version of self harm was slashing his arm open and stapling himself only to rip the staples out - 

To the completely clueless innocent whose entire life had been shrouded in comfortable Christianity and who refused to expand his horizons for to do so might shatter all he had known - 

To the pathological liar who manipulated me and countless others, and preyed on girls younger than him because they were the only ones clueless enough to accept his exaggerated myths - 

None of them would I be proud of. 

And I know I am no paragon of virtue, therefore who am I to judge? 

And I am not saying that those whom I have just listed are not worthy of love, 

But, to answer my mothers question, no one whom I could ever picture growing old with could ever ever love me. 

And I cannot again rush into a relationship with an aimless boy struggling with numerous unresolved issues. 

Mine are issues enough for now. 

If I ever love again, he would have to be mature…and well - read…and capable of understanding me without consistently dragging me down…and yet he must need me also, not just I him. 

But no one without major issues of their own could ever love the mess I am and have become, nor could they ever understand. 

And any pure man is justifiably justified in taking one look at me and fleeing for dear life. 

Which is why I say I shall never love or be loved truly. 

And although I occasionally mourn the loss of my hope, I am learning to come to terms with it. 

I am learning to be alone. 

I am learning to be lonely.”

-s.v. (via tumblr)