[Not] Yours Truly

1. This is not about one person.

2. Criticism about the writing style is always appreciated. *looks around for The Hunter and The Mantis*

A man must only give that which he has in his possession. Anything else would simply be a desperate pretense at capability and an insult to the one who would receive it.

How do I give an apology for a crime I would appear not to have committed? Is there something I omitted at the beginning of this journey? Something I failed to say? I know very well that as with most writers who carry their souls in their pens, words often fail me when my tongue is to be the means of communication. And so now, instead of speaking, I write. Maybe I shall find redemption in this post. The acceptance of an apology forged of multiple taps and clicks my keyboard makes, collated into this post and placed at the altar of my conscience for a sin of omission which I accuse myself of committing. Even though the fact is that this massive cluster fuck comes as a result of you choosing to omit my words from memory when dealing with the feelings you should not have for me.

In many ways, I am unlike many of my specie. This fact has become something that stands as both a source of pride and pain to me. But as it turns out, pride is not power. My pride became my pain as once and again the love I gave did nothing but give others the power to engrave using the shards of my broken heart, pain within my soul. So much so that I could take no more losses and I was forced to cut those losses and shut down. A moratorium declared on love, feelings and other sordid affairs. All relationships would be friendly, sexual, or both.

“I’m sorry; this one is officially on a love lock down.”

And this I told you clearly when you and I came into play. For though my needs, they may exist, I have never been one to seek for sex through deceit or misrepresentation. We spoke many words but the interpretation we came to reminded me of words sung by Donnell Jones … *singing* No relationships involved, let’s keep it strictly physical…

You claimed to understand and agree but I could see that you were not as strong as you tried to give off. I may have taught in Setting P that you were not allowed to catch feelings, but nobody ever taught me how to make sure feelings are not caught for me. I predicted to myself that you would fall, but did nothing about it for fear that my arrogance may have been misleading me. I guess that to protect you from me would have been me being my best, but my interests lay between your breasts and thighs and the sighs I could elicit when we had illicit affairs. Funny how the feelings brought about by breathless moans and ecstatic sighs can transmogrify into unwanted emotions. And so it was that you fell, and now here we stand.

I hear the tears and emotion in your voice as we speak post coitus and you try not to voice out those words which lie at the back of your throat, threatening to come out, but I feel nothing. I see the stark truth in the words you type out when you text, but I feel nothing. A part of me wants to lie, smile and tell you what you want to hear, but the truth is exactly as you fear and I cannot care enough to make it different. You’ve unwittingly placed your heart at my feet and stand asking for mine. A small, chivalrous part of me asks why I cannot give you what you want but like I said at the beginning, a man can only give what he has and I would not insult what we do have.

How can I give you my heart when the place where it once was is empty like a punch bowl at a drunken house party? How can you even ask for it when you were told it was unavailable? You haven’t, but yet your silence rings loudly. It lingers with every unsaid word that lies in-between the “I miss you” and “I wish I could be with you right now.” Maybe it’s time for us to ease back and renegotiate the terms of our arrangement. But this can only remain as it is or become what once was. I cannot be the knight in shining armor you seek. I cannot save your heart. I hope you read this and find some clarity. I hope you understand.

[Not] yours truly.