Only If You’re Silent Will I Love You

CO-DEPENDENCY | On letting oneself silence and wither in an unhealthy, co-dependent relationship.

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Bodies merging
Euphoric happiness
Loving confirmations
Depth
Minds connecting effortlessly
Talk of dreams and future

How could this possibly not be right?

♥️ ♥️ ♥️ ♥️ ♥️ ♥️

You move in
Sense moves out
But I’m too happy to notice
Too happy to notice that nothing gets resolved, nothing develops
That words are empty diversions from anything that might hurt
I’m too happy to notice that I’m not really being noticed

Bodies merging
Euphoric happiness
Loving confirmations
Minds connecting effortlessly
Talk of dreams and future

How could this possibly not be right?

♥️ ♥️ ♥️ ♥️ ♥️

Our first disagreement, and you go silent for days
I ask you to hold me but you can’t
I ask what you need to be happy again, but you turn your back
My heart is slowly starting to ache
But I don’t want to listen
Instead I put it in a box and I store it away

Bodies merging
Euphoric happiness
Loving confirmations
Talk of dreams and future

How could this possibly not be right?

♥️ ♥️ ♥️ ♥️

Work is stressing you, an email makes you mad, and I see you slip away before my eyes
I beg for you to talk to me, to connect, but you don’t see me
I try to understand, figure out how to help
“You can never understand!”, you say, annoyed with me for trying
“You have never done what I’m doing, you can never understand my suffering!”
And my heart is aching again, inside its box

Bodies merging
Euphoric happiness
Talk of dreams and future

How could this possibly not be right?

♥️ ♥️ ♥️

Weeks of silence-treatment, followed by remorseful apologies and blissful connection
Heaven and hell alternating, and I tiptoe around, afraid to trigger the latter
You promise it will all change, later, when this and that is done
Later we will go travelling, meet up with friends, be happy, start living life
But I see your deadline move with a pace identical to time itself
I know “later” is not approaching, but I want to believe you
I really want to believe you

Bodies merging
Talk of dreams and future

How could this possibly not be right?

♥️ ♥️

I’m a bottle of suppressed emotions and silenced words and I’m getting fizzy
In tears I tell you my formula: let me talk, cry, then hug me and I’m fine!
It’s worked for decades before!
You look at my tears in despise
“You’re mentally ill”, you tell me, with your white coat on and your psychologist voice, and with a big plaster over my mouth as the only treatment you end the conversation
And I believe you

“Only if you’re silent will I love you”, are the words I hear
and I accept the terms

So we don’t talk about us
Instead, we talk about everyone else
Judge other people’s relationships, other people’s actions
And there’s a lot to say – no one is really quite good enough
I hear myself judge with you, and my voice is foreign to me
I don’t know it, and I don’t like it
But I’m desperate for release
At least we are talking, and I can let some of my own feelings seep out without you noticing
Without you punishing me with your silence
And it’s keeping me from exploding

It is our only glue, the talking of others
At least in “us and them”, there is an “us”, and I’m willing to sacrifice everyone else for your closeness, your connection
Because by now I’m starving
I know how you think so I say the right words
We bond by building a wall around us
Building connection by disconnecting from the world
I see it grow, the wall, and soon it’s too high for anyone on the outside to see me
“There’s only you – we’re all alone in this world!” you keep telling me
And I hear a weak voice inside objecting, but I can feel it now, the loneliness, so I cling on to the nearest rock
You

My heart is screaming from inside its box, and the dim echo vibrating within me finally has me acting, turning to the only medicine I trust: space
I go away, and I arrange for you to have the means to move out whilst I’m gone, to save our relationship until you’re done with your this and thats and our “real life” can start
You don’t
I come back, you are still there, and you talk about children
But not us

Bodies merging

How could this possibly not be right?

♥️

That box around my heart is starting to crack
My leaking heart is bleeding through – internal bleeding shutting down my system
I find myself on the bedroom floor, hyperventilating, in panic
“We talk about it tomorrow”, you say as you look up from the TV couch, for a second meeting my begging eyes
We don’t

“This is not working, and there’s nothing more to say”, you declare at breakfast
“I’m not going to talk about it”

“Only if you’re silent are you safe”, are the words I hear
and to save myself, I accept the terms
I rip my vocal cords out of my throat, leave you all I have left and run to find a place to hide and heal, in silence

 

Photo credit Pete Longworth [www.petelongworth.com]