Two Chains

The fairy tale of a prince looking for his true love and having a castle and a kingdom to share with someone but not having found her yet. In the same fairy tale the girl is looking for somewhere to stay at night and ends up at his place. His mother places peas in her bed, and the rest is history. They fall in love and live happily ever after. He was healing my childhood. Everyday he told me how beautiful I was to him, and I started to believe it. Even in my glasses. Even with frizzy hair. In all of the states of my being that man said he adored me. And I felt it. My neck grew and I was able to hold my head up higher, my walk changed, every step I took was confident and sure of my next steps. Every phone call and every text brought sheer joy. Swapping stories from our childhood and bonding over the similarities. The attention he paid to me, paid every debt from the past. I didn’t know that I would ever fully get over R and I finally knew I was over Chicago. I adored him. Even though I could see his weaknesses, because I have this thing about me where I can see deeply, nothing about the exchanges are on the surface. I could see his irritability, and his health issues and I didn’t care about none of that. I wanted to be there until the end of time. I could see his hurt from being excluded, and I could see his will to find himself and keep going. I could see his patterns of behaviors in relationships from what he shared and I wanted some of it too. I could see his disappointment in being let down by women, and his mother. I could relate to always feeling like the short end of the stick belonged to him. He was the answerer to all of my problems. It was like the best love song but on repeat, Baggage Claim by Don Trip, and Forever by Jessie Reyez and 6Black. I was riding and he was rolling. The deep loyalty I knew he had for me and so I went and got a tattoo. On my ring finger, his Capricorn sign and 143. Cuz baby I knew it was gonna be me & he. I got the tattoo because I had never committed to any man or any relationship this way. I wanted to show him I was so for real. He promised everyday to never leave me, he was patient with my neediness, and soft with my feelings. He was accommodating of my necessary communications. He read me a bed time story every night before I went to sleep. Even when he was mad at me. And that made me feel loved. Listening to his voice tell the same story about a happy ever after every night, no matter what the day brought us. Hearing his commitment to me by way of this Princess and the Pea was everything. I felt like He  saw me and was willing to forsake his ego, and him self to love me the way I needed. He didn’t think I was weak, he didn’t take advantage of my desires, he gave me space to exist. His love was so good for me, and to me. And then I started to push him away. I started to feel like I couldn’t have this love. But it was mine, and his, and ours and we protected it. I pushed him away like you do a child on a swing set. You don’t want them to go to high and never too far from your reach, but just enough so they can have height and traction. I was pushing him away like you push the cart in the grocery store. Piling things inside of it, that ultimately have a cost, but can visit every part of the store, but only the places you guide it to. I was pushing him away like humans do when they really want the compliments but want to come across humble so they don’t ask for it. I became overly judgmental, and sensitive, and accusatory. I was worried he would leave me, so I needed to prove to us both that he wouldn’t. I needed to test all the boundaries and limits so I could see how far the cart would go if I gave it a hard shove and sent it down the aisle. I needed to see how much gravity and wind would go beneath his legs on the swing. I needed to see how many threats, and arguments would he tolerate. And still he read me the bedtime story, every night. No matter what foolishness I brought him that day, or what he was experiencing he read me that same story. He waited on facetime until I was sleep. Until my eyes were closed. He didn’t rush or fuss, he just was consistent. The sight of his face, the smell of his cologne, the afternoons spent watching movies in my bed, taking care of his child and mine, watching him grill with my son, and actually take an interest in my first born. To hear him sing, and watch him get dressed every day before he left the house. To watch him twirl the ring on his finger, to push his glasses up on his face. To hear him command respect, using authority, and intellect to do his job. I adored everything about him, and still something in me wouldn’t let me have him. So I picked the easiest wounds, and questioned everything that already had an answer. When I told him I was pregnant he was happy! He wanted to be there! He was elated and ready to share a life with me. He gave me life. And I found excuses not to give him the life. He held my hand through it all. Marriage was on the table in the plates and the cups and the forks, nothing was off limits from him to me. And I still couldn’t commit. His family and all his friends knew about me. How worthy I felt, how important, how valuable. I cant go back, and neither can he. Things started changing. He started to realize the stress of me wasn’t worth his time, that the juice wasn’t worth the squeeze and that his happiness may not be in me. He left those chains at my house one weekend after he left from a visit and I vowed to never stop loving him, to never give up on him coming back to me. So I wore those chains to everything. I wore them in dress up clothes, I wore them in my uniform, I wore it in all the pictures, in case he saw me in a picture he would know I kept my word. Those two gold chains were heavy from their realness. They represented the thug in both of us. The two chains were a reflection of who we were individually and together, and so I wouldn’t stop wearing them, I couldn’t give up. I made it a part of my identity. Only me and him would ever know why I wore those chains, why I allowed masculine energy to be on me even in a pink skirt and a girly top. Why I wore those chains to every Chief event. I never wanted to let go, and I wanted to be forgiven of my sins by my loyalty. My birthday came and he fumbled that horribly, I pulled something in my back and he was mad I woke him up. But when he left baby something inside of me broke. Broke me in all the places in all the ways. I tried to get it together, I apologized for all the foolish arguments, I apologized for pushing him away and I swore to do better, And I fully intended on it. But he was done, finite, finished. My tears didn’t move him, my love didn’t hold him, and my begging didn’t persuade him. I threw any ounce of integrity, pride and self esteem I had out the window for him to still decide to leave me. And I couldn’t comprehend it. Even after I was blocked I called with *67. There was no way I had a man who read me bedtime stories and I fumbled it. Regret flooded my spirit. The ill never be good enough came back, the I wasn’t meant to be in a relationship, the I’ll never be loved unconditionally, the I’m not normal, I cant change, I cant get better, it all came back. I really felt like he cut the lights out, and I had no clue where the light switch was. When I saw him smiling at his phone and texting back I knew it was really over, and that just that quickly he had moved on. Wheew! That was painful. He never came back for his stuff, and again I knew it was over. Shoes, clothes, cologne, nothing he left behind was he coming back for. And I couldn’t comprehend what was happening. So I held onto hope. Hope that what we shared was real enough for him to come back, I held onto his promises of forever, I reasoned that he just needed to get something out of his system. I prayed that he would come back, and that something would happen and make him think of me, and believe in us again. Months went by and I stopped calling once a week, months went by and I was drunk in the streets of NOLA, months went by and everyone kept moving day to day in life. Months went by and I kept working, I kept showing up, I kept trying. Months went by and I couldn’t tell anyone. My friends were done hearing about him after July and August, so I stopped talking about it. I stopped praying for him and for us. I vowed to never sleep with anyone just in case he came back I could still be viewed as his. And then I did 12 months of celibacy and he never came back. And I told myself to get over it. What do you do with forever not meaning forever? I listened to Lizzo and Beyonce and moved to the left and screamed I was irreplaceable and I’m 100 percent that bihh and nothing ever really healed my pain. And here I am almost two years later still grieving the loss. Finally able to write about it clearly and without body wracking sobs. I can finally see that I am working through it. I couldn’t face him again in a new relationship. I couldn’t act like we never happened from a space that we were never supposed to happen. I couldn’t see that everyday and act like my heart wasn’t broken. I couldn’t act like I never knew about the tattoos in places no one saw, I couldn’t act like I didn’t used to sleep with his shirt on my pillow just so I could smell his cologne, I couldn’t tough it out anymore, I couldn’t get over it anymore. So today I pack away the two chains with the intention of giving them back. The weight of that relationship wont weigh around my neck anymore. I will give him back the last part I was hanging onto. Tonight I will read myself a bedtime story, probably the Bible and let God continue to heal me. I wont be burdened down by his forever not being forever, and I will go get this faded 143 covered up or redone to remind myself that loving myself is what matters. Committing to myself is where its at.