The devil I know

You know what’s crazy? I’m not even mad at you right now. I’m not spiraling. I’m not overthinking and I’m definitely not trippin off the fact that our plans didn’t make it out of the text messages. It’s disappointing but I can admit that I was wrong in my own ways. I wouldn’t be surprised if you never spoke to me again. Not because it was that deep, because the possibility of never speaking again has been the quiet undercurrent of our entire connection.

This decade long “friendship” has never been anchored. It’s been strung together by repetition and its own volatility, held up by a pattern of entrances and quick exits. More blocks than beginnings, more harsh words and avoidance than any real direction. And that isn’t accidental… that’s architecture I rely on. The push and pull, the emotional whiplash. It’s the only consistency we ever gave each other.

Those weekends spent together? They were beautiful and easy, but never long enough to evolve into anything more. They were long enough to ignite insane chemistry and they were intense enough to stretch a curiosity that stays with me, but we never had the structure to become anything else.

This shit is wild.

After 2 years of silence, just weeks after a breakup and my broken engagement, I slip back into hours-long phone calls with you like muscle memory. Catching up with you is the kind of intoxication that feels substantive in the moment, but the conversation only mimics depth because it arrives wrapped in history. And once the high wears off, the truth settles in. You’re the voice on the line for everyone. Familiarity impersonates meaning, and I, the perpetual actress, have always been a little too willing to fall for the performance.

I’ll admit, there’s a specific kind of sadness reserved for love that never survives outside high hopes, late-night imagination, and the version of you that I create when I’m lonely and uninspired…

I’ve never understood your investment in all of this. Still don’t. I never trusted your fleeting interest or your attention span. I hate how your attention in the moment makes me believe I actually matter to you, yet you run the second I displease you. The moment connection requires accountability or consideration, you treat it like a threat and you’re out. And somehow you frame things like I never show up for you. I never check up on you. I never chase you down to prove that I’m worth trusting.

You and I both know you’re not emotionally invested like that. Not truly. You pick me up when you feel like it and put me down the second I inconvenience your ego. If I speak up, when I disagree, when I call you out on something shitty you do, you’re gone.

For the record, your silence does nothing for me. You prove no point. It flatlines my interest, devalues anything that ever felt real and makes you smaller in my eyes. Every time you come in heavy and then pull back, it hurts, I lose respect for you and my role becomes clearer.

I know it kills your vibe when I notice the gaps. I see plot holes and point out inconsistencies. You hate that I can read the intentions behind the lines, that I understand you too well to pretend that I don’t. You need someone who will deliver the performance without questioning the material, someone willing to carry the illusion even when the writing slips just to prove they want the part.

Don’t get me wrong, I know how to show up. I know how to make something feel real. But the connection is too thin, the direction too vague, and I’m not going to pretend otherwise just to keep the production going.

Honestly? That’s why I don’t fuck with you right now. The story we keep falling into is unoriginal and exhausting. And you don’t know how to play your part either.

I wrote something the other day:

“Illusion tends to collapse under its own weight”.

And that’s exactly what I’m standing in now. The collapse. The fantasy in my head, the projection, the recycled past I keep trying to reenact with you… all of it is rubble now, and for once, I genuinely don’t care. I realize now that I’ve been holding onto the familiarity of you like a life raft. Not because you’re stable, or safe, but because you echo a pattern I’ve survived before. Your brilliance, your advice, your insight, your music, your writing, your artistry… You are the devil I know. The devil I love. The devil that leaves.

And honestly? I think you clocked that before I did. Maybe that’s why you feel so comfortable walking away, so certain there’s nothing new here.

I know that you never asked to be my familiarity. You never asked to be a pattern for me to repeat. You never asked to carry the weight of my projections. All you asked of me was to be nice. And dumb. And easy.

I’m okay with the fact that I’m not and I never will be, nice, dumb and easy.

But for what it’s worth, I am sorry if I ever made you think otherwise.