I can't read the poem anymore. I skim over it knowing what it holds. My past rolled up into 45 lines...it makes me sick. When I first wrote it I loved it. It was my way out. A great relief to be able to eject part of the pain. I hadn't written poetry in a while. I felt it was absolutely beautiful. Words that told everything in my favorite form of expression. Something I could share with others or hold for myself. It was any easier way to let people know what happened. Just bring out the poem and they start to understand. But I can't read it anymore. I don't want to relive "The Memories." The words no longer help me deal with the reality of what my life has become. What I am forever running from. They just remind me of the misery that followed. I want to move on. I need to become fresh and new. Something different. Something better. I want to be me again, because who I seem to be is not really who I am...

You say you're falling apart
Reached the end of the line
Just looking for your place in an ordinary life
No one calls you friend
No one even knows your name
You just want to feel loved instead of all the pain

You no longer have to say
No one's listening anyway

Come here and cry on my shoulder
I'll hold you 'till it's over
I'll rescue you tonight
Let my arms be your shelter
Your hiding place forever
I'll love you more than life

You're wearing a frown
Given up on hope
My heart is reaching out
More than you will ever know
Is your burden too much?
Is it more than you can bear?
I'll help carry the load if you're willing to share

You no longer have to say
No one's listening anyway

You have had some hard times
Had thorns placed in your side
I know about what you've been going through
Tears of pain are falling down
It hurts so bad you're crying out
You're problems won't last forever
Let me put you back together

by overflow

I found out he cheated on me a lot and the last time he cheated was like Friday.  This is why he had such a hard time letting go of his "friendship" with his ex. It hurts like hell. What happened to love? I thought he was sincere and caring. I had so many mixed feelings and slight revelations, but I still trusted him. He was just so believable. I love him still. I always will. I mean love doesn't go away with something like that. I can never stop loving him because love is forever. 

I can hardly think through this logically. I haven't been to class in a week and I have all sorts of big projects that are due. I just can't focus or concentrate. I don't want to face the world. Besides every so often I break down and cry. I can't have that happen to me in public.

I feel sick to my stomach. How can someone with such beautiful eyes be such a great liar? I could swear it was just the Thursday before the last time he cheated that he got on his knees before me...He's so emotional...so deceptive...yet so beautiful...so lovable...so amazing... I feel as though he stole my heart, squashed it, then laughed in my face.

How can so many awful things happen to one person in life? What did I do to deserve it?

I must say again I still love him. As I always will...

Last night he said, "I might give up everything for you, Mandi, but we need time to build love, time we never spent before. I do love you, but I want to start over. FROM FRIENDS and see what happens."

Does he honestly expect to go from being madly in love, planning our future, talking about our marriage, looking at rings, to simply being friends and have me be okay with it?!

I told him last night, "My mom always told me to guard my heart and I had it guarded somewhat in the beginning, but you've got my defenses down. I don't want to have to put them back up, but if things keep going this way, I'm going to have to. I love you so much, but I also have to take care of myself. I can't let this wear me down."

This morning I woke up wanting to talk to him. I can't get through to him on the phone. He has bad service on his cell phone where he is and he isn't online. I sat here pondering things from the last few days. All of a sudden, my guards are back up and to me he is simply a friend. Nothing more.

I'm sorry. I do love him with all my heart. But I love myself too. It seems no one else ever does, but I am going to treat myself right. I'm not gonna let my heart continue to break. I'll salvage what's left. As much as I want to believe he will love me some day, I'm not going to sit here pining after something that may never be.

It's over.

He and I are apart now.

I wanted to start over. There was so much going on, so much trust that needed to be rebuilt. We needed to get back to where we used to be. I wanted to fall in love with him again. I needed him to love me the way he used to.

I found out he cheated on me. It was a long time ago, but he had lied so many times. Can I honestly trust that it was only once? Is it true that it was so long ago like he claimed?

I didn't want him to hang out with his ex anymore. I didn' t like him talking to her. He said he wouldn't, but he continued anyway. "I don't want to let go of a good friend," he told me once I found out the truth.

She's the one he cheated on me with. How can I allow their friendship to continue? I asked him how would he feel if I were to keep talking to Tom. "Fine go ahead and talk to Tom if that's what you want!" He raised his voice. I don't want to talk to Tom, I just wanted him to understand how I felt.

I wanted to feel that he still loved me and I wanted to make him happy. I ended up crying twice and almost breaking down a third time before it was all done. My worst fears were confirmed. He didn't feel the same for me that he used to. It was different...Yet through it all he kept telling me he loved me. "Mandi, I love you....I love you, Mandi..." Lies, lies, lies. It was all a lie!

I told him about something I did/happened to me when I was five. He overreacted. I mean it was 14 years ago! Maybe I was six...Why did it make him not want to be with me anymore? "I'm just worried about you," he says. Well, what a fine way to show it!

My life is different now. I'm in control. Things don't just happen to me anymore. I try to avoid stupid junk. Sometimes I make mistakes, but don't we all?

He made mistakes and I forgave him. He tried to blame me for so much. I found out he did things that were worse than what I did during our relationship. What topped it all off was the way he made me feel when I messed up, instead of being forgiving. He claimed to forgive, but all he did was continue to be my boyfriend. Yet all the while, he never let me live down the mistake I made.

And now he knows about my past, but does it really change who I am?  He knew so much already and he said to me, "I'm not running from you, baby, you need to know that." I am still the Mandi that he knew and claimed to love. There were just things that had not yet been revealed, so why should that change our relationship? My life has always been that way. My history hasn't been changed by a revelation. So why does something that happened over a decade before he knew me, before I was even done developing as a person, affect the the way he feels about me?

We're supposed to be just friends. I don't want him to be my friend. I came to a point where I was willing to reach a compromise. I loved him and I wanted to see the world through his eyes. I couldn't comprehend, but I tried my best to do what I could. When I had wanted a simple friendship he refused to accept it. I ask him why our roles are reversed now. Everything I said and thought before he is now voicing and I find myself clinging to him the way I felt he clung to me. Are we really so alike that we can switch stances on the same issue and still continue to argue so fiercely?

He says the reason he treated me the way he did before, the reason he refused to be my friend, is because he was being selfish. The question I ask is, what makes him think he's not being selfish now?

Josh and I are still together. He says he loves me. He doesn't want to marry me, but maybe he'll get that feeling again someday. He just wants to take things slow. One step at a time. Try to build back up to what we had. I'm hurting inside. As much as I hurt, it kills me to think of how much more I probably hurt him. I'm not worth it. I don't deserve him and I don' t know why he's still with me.
I told him I wanted him to go to counseling if we're gonna stay together. The fact that he slit his wrists over me means that something really serious is wrong. No one in the entire world is worth that. I'm glad the cuts weren't deep enough to do any serious harm. I feel absolutely worthless. It does me no good when he tells me he forgives me, when he says he loves me, when he tells me I am worth it, when he says I'm beautiful. I feel like even less when he claims that I am more. I'm nothing that he thinks I am and I hate everything I have become over the years.
I say time and again that I wish someone would love me. At this moment I finally realize that I wish i would just love myself.