Richardbyryan - R I C H A R D

dreaming skies

tears only eyes have seen...

http://www.silkybyryan.com

beauty lies within darkness.

fall feels

gated

There’s this theory I once read on the internet—that in our lifetime, we will experience three distinct kinds of love. The first is simple: your first love, your puppy love. It’s the kind of affection that blooms during childhood, elementary years, maybe even high school—the giddy feeling of having a crush for the first time, believing it’s already the whole world.

The second love is the one that hurts the most. It’s the love that makes you believe in forever—the one you imagine standing with at the end of the aisle. Maybe you even marry them. But somehow, it still falls apart. It’s not a mistake; it’s a lesson. A heartbreak that teaches you who you are, forces you to break, to heal, to rebuild. And the second love doesn’t necessarily come in the form of your second lover—it might be your third, fourth, fifth. It’s not about order. It’s about depth. It’s the love that shatters you and, in doing so, helps you love yourself a little better before the third arrives.

The third kind of love is the quietest but the strongest. It is unexpected. It does not come to tear down your walls—it respects them, climbs them carefully, maybe even helps you build an entire home on the ruins of what once was.

But for me... I don’t believe that these stages must always happen with different people. Because I’ve experienced them all— with one person. And I have loved him for almost 8 years now. (What the fuck?) Yes. What the fuck. What the fuck is wrong with me? Why does he still haunt me after all these years? Am I desperate for love? I don’t think so. Every time I try to open my heart to someone else, he comes back, like a shadow cast too long to escape. A ghost stitched into every corner of my mind, a whisper in the silence. He didn’t even do anything. He just exists—and somehow, it’s enough to drive me insane.

I tried. God, I tried. I entertained other people. I laughed. I smiled. I tried to stitch someone else's name where his once was. But every time, he returned—sprouting like a mushroom from a garden I no longer tended. All my friends tell me I'm crazy, delusional, trapped in a mirage I refuse to leave. And sometimes, I believe them. Because just when I feel like I’m ready to let go—he appears again. Like a curse, like karma I can never outrun.

There was a time I thought confessing would break the spell. So, I did. I told him everything. Every ugly, raw, humiliating truth. For a moment, it gave me peace. For a moment, I thought I was free. But I was wrong. He is a ghost I cannot exorcise, a chain I cannot sever. No matter how hard I try to outrun him, to bury him, he is there, in the quiet, in the dark, haunting me still.

But God, I know I am not crazy. I know I am not imagining things. I know exactly what I felt. I know exactly what I saw. And it’s a different kind of hell—knowing it so clearly, yet having no one else to bleed it with you. The first time we saw each other again, after I ghosted him (fucking ghosted him because of the overflowing thought of self sabotaging that I was not worth it, I am not enough. Because I thought if I left first he would find someone better, and maybe he did.)—felt like standing inside my own funeral. I saw him at the engineering building, wearing black. I was wearing black too. No big deal, right? Except it was. It was the color we wore for the death of whatever almost was. I recognized him instantly. I didn’t want to, but I did. And worse, part of me knew he would recognize me, too. Because once upon a time, he knew me better than anyone ever tried to. He looked back. He looked back. Like a slow, brutal confirmation that I wasn’t invisible, that this wasn’t just my nightmare alone.

That was the last time I saw him during freshman year. Eight times in second year. Eight collisions. Eight slow deaths. Then nothing, gone. I thought we were over. I thought fate had finally let me go. I thought I was now free, but freedom feels a lot like dying when you didn’t choose it. But no.. Of course not. Because pain doesn’t leave politely. It circles back when you’re almost healed, almost human again. It was the engineering building again. Same air. Same sickening weight.

We stared. And I swear to you, I could feel the scream in my throat rising, the thousand questions I would never ask, the apologies I would never hear. I knew he had things to say, too. I could see it in his hands, in the way he shifted his weight like he wanted to step closer, wanted to fix something he couldn’t even name anymore. But I broke the stare first. Because that's what cowards do. And I have always been a coward when it comes to him. Still, I caught him looking. Again and again. Quick glances, like he was stealing memories he had no right to keep anymore. And I hated him for it. I hated myself more.

His blockmates noticed. Their stares stabbed at me— mocking, judging, stripping me naked without mercy. Maybe they whispered: "That’s her. The girl who was stupid enough to stay in love with him." Maybe they laughed. Maybe they pitied me. I don’t know. I don’t even want to know. I just stood there. Frozen. Smiling like an idiot to my friends, pretending I didn't just look at him. Pretending like my heart wasn’t thrashing inside my ribs like it was trying to escape my own body.

He’s not the villain. He never was. It’s me. It’s always been me. Loving too much. Hoping too much. Holding on like a fucking fool. And part of him knew. He knew me—knew exactly the kind of wound he was leaving behind. And he looked away anyway. We passed each other like strangers, like none of it ever happened, like none of it ever mattered. No goodbye. No sorry. Not even a fucking smile. Just two people—carrying a corpse neither of us was brave enough to bury.