NEVER BEEN KISSED

It always started off the same, they took their idealized version of me in their head and gave HER the world. She was the woman of their dreams. The creative, the brainiac, the beauty, but the girl in front of them was broken, needy, she had a lot of baggage, and she was human. God forbid she was human, traumatized by life and sooo unworthy. The dichotomy between these 2 sides haunted me. How the fairytale deserved more love than the girl in front of them. “Oh, you act so different from your photos,” as if I was only good if I was a moment in time not a complex woman with so many layers, that no one seemed to want to reach. It can’t help but put damper on my self-esteem. It made me recoil, and drown myself in my work, trying to be better and more worthy to myself. Proving to myself that yes, I did love me? Because of course how could anyone love what I even couldn’t. But how could anyone love a girl like me? So broken, so needy, so full of baggage, so human? If I was single, I would never have to face the parts of me that so many deemed as “too much” I could just be. So, year-round, I remained single, everyone assumed I was taken care of, but it was always just me by myself at the end of the night. Night after night, yearning for something I’ve never even seen up close. Truth is, I became terrified. To show all of me to another person. The thought of being broken by another man kept me to myself, but of course, I did it again. This time would be different, I did the work, I loved both sides, I promised myself this time would be different. I was different. But then, it happened again. I forced my way into someone’s life even though he told me over and over in so many subtle ways that all of me wasn’t welcome. Oh of course, you fell for HER. The creative, the brainiac, the beauty, the dream. I grew to hate her, even though she was clearly best part of me. Because why was she worth more than I was, why did she deserve love, and I didn’t?