I see them everywhere I go.

Sometimes it’s girl’s who just look like them.

Sometimes it’s….actually them.

It’s haunting either way. Some people are cool with their exes; I’m not. I swear I’ve tried; it’s never worked. I’d like to think my love is a burning, intense one. I can’t scale back, I cant turn the oven back on to the same heat as before, I can’t just cool down and be friends…it never works.

I am simply too much.

So my exes burn out. From the land of the living to ghosts in 2 blinks. They are wisps of smoke in a burning building.

They reach out to me when I wonder how they are doing, or they appear on my timeline, or at a party. They make their presence felt. I don’t know if I manifest it or what (I’ll discuss me and my spiritual ties in another post…or I won’t!), but it happens. I don’t really reach out because I don’t have the urge to. Anytime I did have the urge, they appeared, we spoke, that was that.

When my exes get in touch with me, I aim to keep it short and sweet. This is because its very rarely just a friendly conversation; It always takes a turn. A few times, I’ve steered the vehicle; most times they’ve whipped it off road. I don’t need them back. I see myself out.

This may also be why I will probably never just be “ok” with girls I seriously date still being very close to their exes. That post relationship purgatory is an opportunistic place; usually someone wants something more than a friendly chat. I also may need to trust more. Who knows.

I was never much of a rekindler. I was never good at it. The last two times I did it, I fucked it up.

I blew it the moment I opened those doors. In my life, for me, PERSONALLY, I don’t have a reason to re-stoke those fires. And when I did, shit went bad. Mainly because I refused to believe that I made the right choice the first time (I did). My other reason is because bringing girls back from the dead is a lot like breaking a vase and gluing it back together. The flowers will still look great, it might even hold water like it did before….but one day, you’re gonna get real close and know it’s a lost cause. Best of luck.

So while my exes exist, they don’t exist on my plane, really. They might be alive in a girl’s face or style of dress, in something I read, in using something I learned from them. They also are “dead”, when I wake up in the morning and go live life. They are all great women (all of them), but I respect their place. With respecting their place, comes trusting in your decision to leave them. I trust it. I didn’t always; that took growth and knocking on doors I had no business standing in front of.

And those doors lead me into a few burning apartments. The same fire that kept us warm many a night, engulfed us.

I just happened to be the one who came back from those ashes, not afraid to get engulfed again.