An Open Letter to My Ex

Unlike you, I am not good with painting or other forms of graphic arts. The best that I can paint are the words that my flow from both my mind and heart as I smear them across the canvass of my prose and poetry. And this is the portrait of my apology.

I am sorry I messed around and messed up. Despite all the things that you’ve done, I found a way wreck things. All your efforts, your understanding, your adjustments—they were brought to nothing as I gave myself into the temptations of playing with a different fire. Sorry I deleted chats and text messages from my phone so you wouldn’t see them, because I knew I was doing something I shouldn’t be doing. There was no excuse to such behaviour. I am sorry I wasn’t strong enough to kill the flame before it devoured me and burnt not only me but our happy memories.

I am sorry I lied to you. You caught me red handed, and I had the audacity to lie to you, to deny things to the best that I could, and to pretend that nothing happened. I wished you brush the truth aside and carry on like nothing was wrong. I pushed the limit of my lies and shattered your trust even worse. I lied despite being in the face of the truth; I lied even when I knew it would break your heart, the self-same heart that loved me to the best way it knew how. I am sorry I cannot handle the truth that I was and still am desperate and wretched. I am sorry I thought I was better than this.

I am sorry I broke my promises. You forgave all my lies, and I promised to never do them again—only to make the same stupid mistake over and over. I gave my word that if I find someone new, I would tell you. I promised that when I start dating someone else, you’d be the first to know. And none of these things I did. I never told you anything until you already knew them. I promised several times over that I will never get hurt when you do things that will make you happy; I tried, and I failed. And I was miserable enough to show you my pain and ruin your happiness in the process. I promised I would be better, and every time I try to be, I end up being worse. I am sorry I couldn’t keep my word.

I am sorry I was a control-freak. I never took your freedom and choices into consideration. For me, everything was about us—I forgot that you have a life aside from ours. I forgot that you have friends and family whom you also need to take care of and spend time with. I wanted you all for myself—not sharing you, not even to your family. This was toxic. It choked you. I made you feel you have nothing and no one else, not even me. I demanded too much of your time, of your attention, that it was almost impossible for you to breathe. I made you a slave to my desire, and you willingly complied to the day you broke. I am sorry I pushed you over the edge of sanity and self-control. I am sorry I was selfish and mean. I am sorry I hurt you by wanting you too much and wanting too much of you.

I am sorry I painted you a bad image. Everyone thinks you are the only reason we broke up; that it was all you. You took all the blows, never dodge the bullets, and I basked in their empathy and sympathy, like the victim that I never was. I was selfish; I never told people the other side of the story why we broke up. People knew it was you who cheated; they never knew that I was the reason you did so—that I was I who brought upon the demise of our once blissful relationship. And after all these years, you are still okay with everything—that people still believe you are the evil one—and you never even bother to change the way they look at you because of this. I am sorry I wasn’t brave enough to face the reality that I was the culprit, not brave enough to admit it.

I am sorry I destroyed your forever. You were a fan of forever: we made plans, we set goals, and we talked about how to achieve them—and all these, gone when I broke your heart. I took away your forever; I killed it even before it began. Not only that I destroyed ours, I also turned you into something bitter, someone who no longer believes in forever, someone who sees only the bad days ahead. I am sorry took away your prospect of a happy ending.

I am sorry I ruined love and relationship for you. I left you scarred and traumatized to love again. My mistakes, my lies, my broken promises made you hesitant, questioning, and unaccepting of anything or anyone good that comes your way. I rendered you unable to love again; I made you doubt the sincerity of people to love you. I am sorry I took away something so precious from you—the bliss of being able to love again and being loved back by someone who deserves you and whom you deserve better.

I am sorry I was myself.  I knew I could have been better and I knew I could have done things differently, yet I chose to be myself—a wreck and a pathetic excuse of a boyfriend who did nothing but lied and broke promises. I am sorry I became the boyfriend I promised I never would and you expected me not to be.

Please, do something for me: go out there and find the love you deserve. Find yourself first if you must. Someone is willing and is capable of loving you more than I loved you. You will always have a special place in my heart because you taught me that one cannot really destroy love—you can only transform it into a different kind of love. And thank you for showing me you love me in different ways, and I am sorry I managed to ruin all the loves you gave me. Let us our once sweet, romantic love turn into something better—a love between two people in parallel existence, a kind of love that many might not appreciate yet admire, a kind of love that only the two of us understand, a kind of love we can never ruin.