Keeping My Hands Off the Hot Stove

 These past few weeks have had me thinking of you from time to time. I almost reached out and messaged you. 

And by some stroke of luck or logic, I was gifted the sight of reason and I didn't. Every time I would want to rush to my phone, I remembered. I remembered the look on your face when you laughed as I cried. I remembered the way your face contorted as you mocked me with amused laughter as my heart shattered, the fractured fragments sharpening each of my breaths as I tried to see you through FaceTime. 

That was the last time I saw you. In 3 years, that was the first time I saw the real you. They say, love blinds you and I must say how grateful I am now for the ability to really see who you were, rather than who  you pretended to be. I remember the first time you broke up with me, back when we worked together and people could not believe that the you whom you presented to them, could be the same one who treated me poorly. I wonder how your life will turn out for you. If you will find everything you want out of it, but I doubt that you know what you want. After the last few weeks of the relationship that we had, I saw how lost you were, how out of touch, self absorbed, and so centered on monetary things and things you could get out of other people. 

I wonder if you ever cared for me, or if being with me fit strategic goals, like writing your college essays for you and working on your interview prep for you. I wonder if you even care for your parents, always criticizing them and painting them in less than flattering lights. Or do you just care for what they can do for you and give to you? That is a sorry existence. Just how many times must you place your hand on a hot stove, only to be burned, as anyone could have predicted? Thank goodness I have learned. I no longer touch this stove, as tempting as it is to talk with you as we once had. There is nothing there for me, but for a hot burner. 

And I am free. That doesn't mean I won't think of you from time to time. It's that now when I do, I will think of you completely, not just the feigned good, but also the harsh reality of who you are and for that I am better off.