i’d rather you hate me than forget me

a confession about obsession, the fear of being forgettable, and calling intensity love when it isn’t

as much as i hate to admit this, i think i’m an obsessive person. and not in a ‘dark romance’ way some people would instantly guess—it’s bad obsession. unhealthy obsession. the kind that consumes both me and the receiver.

i’m a selfish person. i’ve always been one. if there has been anyone in my life that i would want to remember my existence, i would rather do something that makes them hate me than simply let them forget me. i wish they’d loathe me. hate me furiously—so aggressively that they’d want to bury me six feet under. because any sort of hate and anger is better than nothing. better than passing by each other on the street with no quickening of the heartbeat.

because what is worse than being hated? being forgettable.

i’ve always thought of people as puzzles to be solved. ever since i was a child, i naturally assumed this was normal. until i grew up a little and heard how my peers would talk about others—about crushes, about gossip, about their hatred. and i never really understood where it all came from. they didn’t bother to figure out the pieces of the person they loved or hated; they only looked at the puzzle as a whole—the mere end product. their lack of obsession didn’t make sense to me. for me, love was always obsession.

i’d read a book, buy its merch, do everything possible to consume it… and then abandon it. the cycle repeats, over and over, and all that’s left in the end is a graveyard of capitalist goods and residue of my burnt-up love.

and i think i love people in the same way. i don’t just feel them. i want to consume them. i want to understand them so deeply that they stop being whole. i want to take them apart and keep the pieces that matter to me. the way they speak. the way their hands move. the things they don’t say but almost do. and when it’s over, i don’t let them leave cleanly. i want to leave something behind. i would much rather put a dagger through your heart and leave you with a scar that itches every time it rains, just so it makes you think of me. i want you to feel the pain of my existence so much that even the rain reminds you of me. that’s how bad it is.

because here’s the part that makes me sick: i know it’s not love. real love, the kind that lets people breathe and grow and leave the room without you tracking their heartbeat like a hunter, has never touched me. i don’t want someone’s happiness if i can’t taste its origin. i don’t want their peace unless i am the earthquake that preceded it. i’ve confused intensity with intimacy for so long that now, when someone is gentle with me—when they say “i care about you” without trembling, without bleeding—i feel nothing. or worse: i feel contempt. because gentleness doesn’t prove anything. gentleness doesn’t leave scars. and if you don’t leave a scar, you were never really there.

so yes, i’ll take your hatred. i’ll take your screaming, your shaking fists, your late-night rants about what a monster i was. at least then i exist in your body. at least then, when you try to fall asleep, your jaw clenches around my name. you want to know what’s underneath all this confession? terror. plain, animal terror that i am so hollow and so loud and so desperate that the only way i know how to matter is to become unforgettable poison. you call it yearning. i call it drowning in front of you and hoping you’ll either save me or step on my head to keep me under. either way, you felt the water move.

don’t judge me for writing this. we aren’t any different. we never were. the only difference is i tore my own chest open and put it on the table while you’re still standing there with your hands behind your back, smiling softly, calling it ‘longing’ or ‘sensitivity’ or ‘i just feel things deeply.’ bullshit. you want to be consumed too. you want someone to take you apart so you don’t have to keep holding yourself together. you just want it to look pretty while it happens. you want the obsession without the ugly confession. you want the scar without admitting you’d bleed for it. but here i am—saying the thing you won’t. so go ahead. flinch. call me dramatic. call me unhealthy. but don’t you dare pretend your version of this is love and mine is sickness.

we’re both sick. i’m just the only one not hiding it behind a softer word.

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