Nothing like the past knock-knock-knocking on your door.
Knew I should have gotten a louder “fuck off” doorbell.
Thought I burned that bridge long ago and now find that there’s some sort of vine growing out of the wreckage and trying to curl itself around my neck.
I thought that scar was a faint white impression of the wound it once was. But there’s some scab left to be picked.
It’s simple words on a screen that lend power to the climbing foliage. To pick at the surface of skin.
I have only myself to blame.
For many months I’ve debated on deactivating my Facebook account. Honestly, if there was a way I could simply use the messenger and not anything else, I would more likely do it. It’s the messenger I don’t want to part with. The main way I communicate with friends I’m not physically close to (like ones I know through this community!).
Today while updating my profile picture to something a bit more festive, I somehow accidentally caused my timeline to switch to 2006.
I should have immediately closed out.
A sane person would.
This jigsawed brain made the decision to continue scrolling. Scrolling through a smattering of words from a period of my life I’d long tried to purge from my being.
Words include lame jokes with friends. Basic life updates about school and work.
And posts from Her.
I have moved multiple times since my 5 year relationship with Katherine, but it still haunts me. Almost daily. I love my current house. So very much.
And yet at night my dreams are permeated with the rooms I lived in with Her. The house I lived at with Her. There is no rhyme or reason.
I barely dream of my current partner at all. I don’t understand this flawed thinking at all.
And now it isn’t even just my subconscious.
I don’t understand why I scrolled. Why I took that screenshot. Why I saved it. Why I include it in this post.
Social media is a toxin. A dangerously addictive substance beyond heroin, meth, or alcohol. It speaks sweetly and dresses up flawlessly. But behind those honeyed words and slick threads is a sinister hole of festering stink.
And I don’t even mean the vindictive way they use profiles for marketing. Note your interests. Or track “trending” topics.
I mean how it harbors a storage of memories you didn’t even know still remained. Memories to be purged. You recklessly thought you’d never have to see again.
A simple click.
Words across a page.