Not this time

All the sharp edges must be blunted.

Allow no memory that will cut you deep.

It is the first rule of failed relationship survival.

Do not let anything that can wound you come close. Delete every photograph, every video, every message, every mocking page of social media. All of those things that cause you to remember. Shut them down, block them out. Excommunicate, banish, excoriate, evict, scrub, cleanse, discard. Never dwell on what was done, what was said, the happiness, the joy, the hopes. Do not allow those sacred, lost moments to run like a loop in your mind.  Do not visit the places you once shared.

Do not remember her scent, her touch, her skin, her laughter. Most of all, do not recall how she loved you once. 

Blot her out.

Erase her.

There is no value in suffering. No point in allowing the hurt to mark you, damage you, blacken your days.

There is nothing to be gained from dwelling on the times when you were happy. Nor for blaming yourself for when they were not. You cannot bring back the past. And even if by some strange magic you could, it would never be the same. Time, events and distance change everything from the moment her fingers and lips leave you for the last time. She is not yours anymore. If indeed she ever was.

I have repeated all this to myself over and over again like a mantra. I know it all by heart. I know what to do and how to do it.

I know it better than anyone.

But I just can’t do it.

Not this time.

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© the author writing as Romantic Dominant

Art by Loui Jover