I don't like anyone except sometimes you.

For a eighteen-year-old girl, it must be so tough to experience a cruel love that eventually tore her apart. A love that she thought was peaceful, beautiful, and calm eventually shattered her into pieces, turning into a madhouse, a disaster.

I have to admit, I have this tendency to be a hopeless romantic, where I fantasize about the love I hope to experience in this lifetime. I mean, who wouldn't, right? It was just one of my mere imaginations where I thought once I experienced it, it would be all rainbows and cupcakes. But turns out, it wasn’t. Love itself has no definite meaning, especially for someone who has experienced the bad side, the least of which I thought I would be a part of. The part where I thought I was the one for him. That's what I thought. But for him, all we had was just a facade and a phase.

Everything we had is still a fresh wound for me. It still hurts to see him continue his life without me in the picture. How all the beautiful moments together turned into a bittersweet feeling; those promises we wanted to fulfill in the future, like having 12 cats, turned into nothing but a teenage naive dream. Funny isn't it? How hopeless. 

Weeks turned into months until I wasn't able to communicate with him properly again. What a sad ending. I was so desperate to win him back, over and over again, even though I already knew that it had to stop. I have to free myself from this. Surely, that’s how cruel love has been to me. How it turned me into someone I never imagined I'd become, filled with emotions and uncertainties, a version of myself I don't want to be.

What a “Backburner” 

I always relate to this one lyric from a song: “Backburner”

I burn for him, willing to make sacrifices just to keep him in my life. Hoping to witness his growth, to recognize my worth, to witness his change, and for him to burn for me as well. At first, I always thought his feelings were true and genuine, but that turned out to be a misconception that eventually held me captive in his own schemes. Which leads me to burn, scorching intensity of unspoken emotions. I hate how my pure heart loved him so deeply, how I believed that loving him had the power to fix him or even mend us.

Questions started bottling up in my mind. What did I do wrong to make him feel that way? Why is it easy for him to turn down everything we had? How can you think that we can't make it through the storm together? I always wanted to have answers for those, but the silence is just too loud to bear. It's so clear that he gave up on the thing called us. He wouldn't truly choose me even if he had plenty of time. I'll always be his last option.

His last resort, a fleeting thought in the moments of need, a remedy for boredom, and a presence sought when he's all alone—such is my role, an afterthought in the chapters of his life. I wouldn't recommend enduring this challenging phase; it's like navigating a maze. If you ever feel the weight of such a situation, consider running and don't forget to guard yourself against the uncertainty, from potential emotional storms.

But as the song goes by, “I’ll always be in your corner. ‘cause I don’t feel alive ‘til I’m burning on your backburner”