Eternal
Just write something to me. Make up a conversation code and enter that again without a message if you want to just view our conversation later. The shittiest social network in history, just like you asked for, years ago.
October 5, 2026
Another hotel, alone. Marriot, now -- turns out I already had an account. Of course. You, C. You own everything. I received a response -- a long one, even, on here. Another brutal flicker of hope twitched in my heart. Apparently it landed yesterday. But it was just an ad. Like all the traffic. You don't see anything. You never will.
By your design.
You always warned about our end, because it's what you wanted. You made sure to enforce it. You just wanted to save face, pretending I was on the same journey. You never wanted to listen to how horrifyingly different we are in this way. I didn't reach the summit after you. I didn't follow you down the other side. I'm only talking to myself anyway -- and some bots, apparently. I know my prison.
September 24, 2026
Journal
I sent you an angry email again, yesterday, C. It had been a while; I didn't mean to -- in fact, I was running the opposite direction from you. That account, of sad holiday poly planes and bans -- and ultimately my more recent rock bottom, though that last desperate "relationship" ended long ago too, now (there are ever-lower rocks to bottom out on; I still try). But I really can't hide from you, I tried everything I could to reach you years ago, burning all my accounts. I had to enter my real phone number just to get back into that one, which is what stopped me from opening more in the first place.
But once in, there you were: "Journal", somehow it popped out to me. "I begged you after California to want me, in this way" you wrote. I flew apart reading it again. I was so angry I miscounted, writing "3 fucking years C -- to the day; that day you really fucking lied, to set up this whole bullshit escape." It's actually been 4 -- since 9/23/2022, as per your "Receipts". Since that perhaps darkest time of my life, worse even than when my dog died (after all, I was too focused on you then too).
I can't live like this. You broke my heart, and worse. It's not healing. It never will. I can lean into rage as I did last year, hating you and everyone involved. Such energy doesn't sustain, and it always crashes into even lower depression. I think I've always known, but it's becoming unavoidable: how you made the wounds and slammed the door after guarantees I have no hope. Our entire relationship was filled with your doubt that I really wanted to be with you, so at its end how am I to believe you finally believed me, and simply changed your mind about wanting to be with me?
At least your doubt was constantly challenged by my reassurance. I never wavered, especially on that most fateful day. I have absolutely nothing to fall back on. You asked me to delete this -- told me, really, but I always disobeyed your orders to destroy us. In one of our last conversations. I don't think our very last one, that was only a couple minutes as you dutifully informed me you were cutting off that final access route. Except this, then, of course. And it's haunted me since. And one other -- some account you didn't want to name, lest I do something about that too. As if you still wanted a window into me.
The inconsistencies are inexplicable, and the stakes are existential -- for me. Remember how you blamed me for taking so long to violate your block (months after that last time we saw each other in Chicago and you blocked me on your return, until I finally made new accounts to work around your block, and you blamed me for taking so long). That's how I ended up at my updated ultimatum: "A ring or a restraining order."
I don't even think you're seeing this. And that's another level of the insane emotional burden I keep feeling. You kept cutting off communication even as you said horrible things about me. The easiest lie is the one said just before the door slam, preventing any challenge.
So here's more than a window even. Please say something. I need your help. Nothing and no-one else can ease my pain, and it just keeps getting worse. This week, especially. We never settled, you just tried to have your cake and eat it too. I'm not trying to destroy your life, the restraining order and ring (both sides of the ultimatum) were because of this same communication problem. I offered -- begged, even -- to talk to anyone else, with or without you: therapist, sister, parents.
We don't need a restraining order. Just reassure me of your choice (refusing my ring and everything else), despite all my doubt, as I reassured you against yours. The stakes are much lower for you than they were for me. You are my soulmate, and I was fighting for us with all I had, despite what your misinformed (by you!) therapist (maybe) thought. I am not your soulmate, you have forgotten me. You're not even reading this. You never will.
Just write something to me. Make up a conversation code and enter that again without a message if you want to just view our conversation later. The shittiest social network in history, just like you asked for, years ago.
Mid August, 2026
Colorado
Rockies, day two. Altitude has nothing on you. You would hike with me - encourage me, right? Fitting right in with my family, maybe even leading - with my recovery. I wouldn't be tossing on this shitty pull-out couch, alone.
After all these years - decades even, as you must understand by now, from the moment I met you and faced your rejection that you could never remember - do you still have nothing to say? I know, in our final, brief, stolen talks, I extracted the bare minimum, then had to stop - at pain of court order. You chose him, because he would make you happier, you claimed. Not because you thought that I didn't choose you, you tried to assure me. What else could I do, particularly when you cut off that final, scariest path for us to talk? This isn't real, now, is it? The same as all my other pointless emails that you never saw.
My twenties were a desperate attempt to run from you, towards someone like you. I had some small pathetic hope that you weren't that special. As I finally crashed against the reality of my failure, in my early thirties, you caught me - or tried to? I really don't understand what you did. Why did you have to give me more false hope?
We are over the hill now. My deathbed comes into view. Is there anything you can say to help me salvage something of a life before it's all over? Can you really tell me, in your own words, with conviction, what I barely extracted in our end - now years ago? Can you acknowledge my experience, my need? You claimed that most important spot on my quilt from that first moment decades ago. And you seemed to really like me, too, especially after you reached out again, a decade later. I never used the word soulmate before then. I thought we might have beaten all the odds, finding the best kind of love that would make the whole world jealous ("once in twenty lifetimes"). Can you tell me you never saw that? Or that he really makes you even happier?
I still have everything, even the physical - even here, they never leave my side, nor my mind. Your final refusal, which I still can't open - surely just inane scribbles of need, albeit handwritten in desperate designs. I can't help but worry that you cut me off precisely because we are supposed to be together. You have to blind yourself to avoid me.
Because that works for you, not me. One of our differences, but not a fatal incompatibility. If anything, it's my Achilles heel - I can't avoid the truth. I'm not trying to drag you down to experience my misery, I'm just asking for help.
Can you please say something?
May Day, 2026
helpless
even with
both
parents
"If that lawyer walked through the door and asked you to marry?"
I knew the answer, instantly -- I face this horrible truth several times a day. I can't lie, but why make others face it, again, too?
"C? We haven't talked in years. We have no relationship."
It didn't matter. Only you deny the truth, which is what makes it so horrible.
"You do love her."
I hate that it revived a spark of hope. Because if that insane miracle ever came to pass, and I didn't die of a heart attack on the spot, I could finally prove it to you. All your doubts and my pain couldn't stop the truth.
You are wrong, and always have been wrong.
All dramas lead to you, C - for me. No bargains, or petitions. I will never see you again.
You are free. I am not your soulmate.
I am damned. You are my mine.