A note on learning detachment
Perhaps I have loved you too hard.
Held on too tightly. Perhaps you have outgrown me, and I’m just learning to synchronize my breathing with yours.
Perhaps I should stop gaslighting myself and step out of this self-absorbed state I’m in.
Perhaps
I say, so it doesn’t enact itself.
So you don’t learn how to go on without me, so the tears I hold back don’t fall, so I still - we still have a chance of surviving.
Perhaps I’m overly dramatic, and nothing is wrong, and these walls I see when we speak are just figments of my overactive imagination.
Perhaps we are fine, and I am just a jittery mess who has only known dysfunctional relationships.
Perhaps that is why I can perceive what is happening here.
Perhaps we are coming to a catastrophic end, and I refuse to wrap my head around it. Perhaps I choke on the jokes I would tell you because I no longer know how you would react; I think twice or thrice of my words, afraid to be the final straw on the camel's back.
Perhaps I’m too careful, and I should let it all loose; I laugh as I type.
I am incapable of such.
Perhaps that is why you have decided you no longer want anything to do with me, and perhaps I'm far too burdensome for you.
Perhaps I caused all this from the start, and where we are, where we aren't and where we couldn't be are all my fault—results of my overbearing soul, my reactive mind.
Perhaps I should stop this self-berating trail, fishing for compassion.
Perhaps I should walk away now that I still have the pieces of my heart accountable.
Perhaps you were only ever dreaming, and it is time to wake up.
Perhaps good things are not meant for me.
Perhaps.
I'm just an over-thinker.
Kofoworola Odozi (she/her) is a writer from Nigeria who shares her creativity with the world @kofoisart. She believes in the solemnization of self and is an avid lover of good music.