I will tell you about selfish people. Even when they know they
will hurt you they walk into your life to taste you because you
are the type of being they don't want to miss out on. You
are too much shine to not be felt. So when they have gotten a
good look at everything you have to offer, when they have taken
your skin your hair your secrets with them, when they realize
how real this is, how much of a storm you are and it hits
them.
That is when the cowardice sets in. That is when the person you
thought they were is replaced by the sad reality of what they
are. That is when they lose every fighting bone in their body
and leave after saying you will find better than
me.
You will stand there naked with half of them still hidden
somewhere inside you and sob, asking them why they did it. Why
they forced you to love them when they had no intention of
loving you back and they'll say something along the lines
of I just had to try. I had to give it a chance. It was you
after all.
But that isn't romantic. It isn't sweet. The idea that
they were so engulfed by your existence they had to risk
breaking it for the sake of knowing they weren't the one
missing out. Your existence meant that little next to their
curiosity of you.
That is the thing about selfish people. They gamble entire
beings, entire souls to please their own. One second they are
holding you like the world in their lap and the next they have
belittled you to a mere picture. A moment. Something of the
past. One second they swallow you up and whisper they want to
spend the rest of their life with you, but the moment they
sense fear they are already halfway out the door without having
the nerve to let you go with grace, as if the human heart means
that little to them.
And after all this, after all of the taking, the nerve,
isn't it sad and funny how people have more guts these days
to undress you with their fingers than they do to pick up the
phone and call? Apologize for the loss? And this is how you
lose her.
—Rupi Kaur, Selfish