He came into my life quietly, like a storm rolling in under soft skies. At first, it was light, easy, a spark that felt like a promise. A message here, a glance there, the kind of beginning that makes you wonder what it could become. It was soft. I was soft.

But somewhere along the way, softness turned into chaos.

It became a game neither of us admitted we were playing. I would spiral, drunk off my emotions, off the longing, off the way he knew how to show up just enough to keep me tethered. He would let me unravel, let me spill out in messy paragraphs of midnight confessions, and he would take it. He would take all of it, responding just enough, never too much, never too little. He would stay.

We would dance in circles, burning through the same conversation on different days. Me, screaming in silence for him to prove me wrong, to prove that he could be more. Him, showing up when it was convenient, when the pull of me was too loud to ignore, when the silence from me became heavy enough to make him move.

And somehow, we never stop. We never let go.

Ten months of this. Ten months of push, pull, crash, burn, repeat. Ten months of “come over,” “I miss you,” “I can’t do this anymore,” “okay, see you soon.” Ten months of stolen moments that end as quickly as they begin. Ten months of me telling myself that this is just what it is, of him taking what he needs, of me giving it, of him letting me feel like maybe, just maybe, I’m the exception, only to remind me that I’m not.

It’s toxic, the way we orbit each other.

It’s the way he texts back after I blow up his phone, like nothing happened, like my breakdowns are just background noise to the quiet chaos we share. It’s the way he hugs me before he leaves, the way he kisses me softly after making me feel like nothing, the way he reminds me without words that he’ll always come back because he knows I’ll open the door.

It’s the way I hate it, but crave it. The way he hates it, but stays.

We are toxic. He and I, we are a war disguised as routine. A battlefield of unspoken words and unmet needs, a graveyard of promises neither of us made, but both of us keep stepping over. It is the kind of connection that feels like a cigarette you can’t quit, the kind that burns you slow, that leaves you coughing, but keeps you reaching for one more drag.

It is wanting him when he is absent, and resenting him when he is present. It is knowing that he won’t change, and refusing to let him go. It is him knowing that I won’t stop trying, and refusing to give me more. It is a cycle. It is a sickness. It is an addiction dressed up as a connection.

It’s the way we keep doing this, over and over, as if we’re waiting for the other to end it first, as if we are testing who will walk away, who will stop replying, who will let the door close. Neither of us do. We let it hang open, wide enough to crawl back through, just enough to keep the tie alive, just enough to keep the damage going.

This is what it is. A toxic, chaotic, unending, twisted dance between two people who don’t know how to let each other go.