your love taught me how to burn this bridge: shit, there's a problem

​you can find the previous installation of your love taught me how to burn this bridge: the beginning here.  i'm feeling this scorpio full moon purge everything to make room for all the good shit so don't stop now, as well as this pluto retrograde gift of putting shit to rest in peace & reclaim misplaced power, & felt like it was time to finish this story.  i'm not sure how many pieces i'm gonna break this into, but we're not done yet.  hope you're also doing some spring cleaning, taking deep breaths, opening palms squeezed tighter than night, & letting the winds of change rattle those bones.  xo

they’re always canceling hang outs, but you tell the femmeiverse, its cool.  no problem.  one evening you realize this is all a farce when they call with a sad voice & say, sweetie’s had a hard day...crying...i gotta go home & take care of her....i’m so  sorry, i really wanted to see you.  you’re still saying to yourself, it's cool, no problem.  so you say to them, its ok, i understand.  you hang up & wedge the phone between the cushions on your big floral print couch your mom thrifted for you & cry in the dark.  it’s the first time you allow yourself such a thing, to cry, because what comes to reckon aches worse than a busted tooth: i am not any kinda priority.  this is a problem.

too soon after, on a sunday, another problem becomes evident.  the sunday morning problem is almost something otherworldly, like, can’t i catch a break in love kinda problem.  you call at the hang out time, they don’t answer.  you call again, they still don’t answer.  you wait & wait & wait & call, & nothing.  all the feels come, all the times they don’t show up for all the reasons, all the times you tell yourself its ok its ok, they break you.  you send them a message like, i want to cancel today.  sorry for messaging instead of calling.  i can’t call right now.  this is the truth. 

you go to your friends house, a friend who also falls in love with white people, & cry in their warm bed & eat lasagna.  you cry  because you keep falling in love with white people & why can’t you stop?  why can’t white people just not be fucked up?  & you cry all the cries you can’t even name yet.  devastated, blown open, those are things. 

you come home to an i’m so sorry message from them, explaining all the things (again), but you can’t reply.  your heart churns.  they send more messages, one after the other, some more passive aggressive, some plain aggressive, some to soften the previous egregious aggression.  your heart breaks & you still don’t know what to say, so you say nothing.  they are angry, desperate, resentful.  they tell you so.  you send a message that says things you mean, sorry for the hurt, still figuring things out, but wanna talk when the time is right.  this is how the crash & burn begins.

after too many messages sent via the internet, too many misunderstandings, & one road trip with their sweetie, you meet up in a coffee shop you never drank coffee in before called nostalgia, because all of a sudden the femmeiverse has a sense of humor.  you come to talk about what you’re learning about yourself & your relationships & colonization & love.  you want to share so you can change up the dynamics of the relationship—it isn’t fair for them to access you whenever they want & to do so with a pungent secrecy & sour let’s not define this so accountability can’t live here.  you want to share how you’re recognizing colonization in your relationships, how white supremacy was like, sure, you’re not dead (yet), so let’s make it so you want to die, or, like, feel dead inside while moving about in the world & still kinda breathe & stuff.  of how colonization in your relationship means you don’t ask for what you want because if you do, nobody will ever love you, & how you force yourself to swallow everything with its ok, i understand.  of how you pretend so much you don’t know what the fuck is happening & can only discern that something is fucking with your heart & that something is them. 

all you wanted was to say, hey, let’s do this different so fuckery doesn’t win.  but they speak first & derail everything with a derailment of the most high: i’m in love with you.  you’re quiet, stunned, trying to hold on as they talk about how they know they are in love with you. 

do you remember that day we sat outside your house & you told me to lift my head & take in the sky?  i knew then, they tell you.  & you do.  now they tell you that they were trying to wrestle with their feelings for you.  they share how on their road trip with their sweetie they stopped in at the twin’s place & read an astrology chart twin had done for their birthday.  they tell you about how the chart had information about a love that has spanned more than one lifetime, & how they know that that love is you.  they also pull out not one, but two cards in envelopes.  one orange & one blue.  each written with their recognizable soft scrawl you ache to have more samples of. 

one is simply addressed,
to: you
from: me
& there’s a heart. 

the other one has your names. 

this is when you start crying & push your anger aside because maybe they really are gonna choose you & that conversation about white supremacy & colonizing kinda love won’t be necessary & you can finally live happily for now with someone who is in love with you & everyone will know.  & you cry & they cry & the snot runs & they ask if they can hold your hand & you say yes.  you sit there and cry for same reasons, for different reasons, for the future you both want, for pasts you wish were different--the present sucks but it’s all you get. 

its been forever since i fell in love for passion, they divulge.  i don’t know what to do about this, they say. 

there’s nothing to do, you don’t say.
           
in a moment of haste you say something you come to regret.  would you even take me in if i left sweetie?  the word no flies out of your mouth because you’re thinking about how messy it would be & how much sweetie would hate you & how you didn’t want to be wondering if they were wondering about sweetie while they were with you for the rest of your forever together.  this is not something you want to find out how it feels.  you are too scared to say yes, so you say no.

you start to bring up your shit, but it’s not the same.  your head & heart are swimming in all kinds of what if’s, but the further in you two swim, the more you know this has to end because the way colonization & white supremacy are playing out.  you know you will be the one to pay the most, no matter what.  with a deep breath you sigh, & they say, this is where you break my heart.  you tell them you need boundaries of not talking anymore  because you know that this will never be in your favor, that this needs to happen to minimize your hurt.  you are trusting the super deep part of you that knows these things. 

nothing helps, you are both breaking.

they respond with shit like, in 10 years, it will be different.  when we cross paths in the future. 

in the end, you give them a piece of rose quartz & promise yourself you’ll never change your phone number.  you both hug like this is as close to fucking as you’ll get, & everything is hot & sad.  you cross the street to your car & sob inside.  there is a song on the radio that will always remind you of this moment.  you go home & cry some more, wondering why you always gotta break your own heart. 

this is not the end.  the betrayal comes in layers.