burned bridges | july 18, 2025

content warning: vague descriptions of grooming, victim blaming, disconnect

there's this friend that i haven't properly talked to since freshman year of high school, and they give me so much GENDER ENVY!!!! they have a very haunting vibe /pos they're so cool... so goated... i think i would've liked talking to them again if they weren't connected to my old high school friend group that catastrophically fell apart.

i think i wanna shoot them a message telling them that and wishing that they're well but.... guh...... i wanna keep my distance......

i hate anything that has to do with my old high school. a lot of my psyche is guilt, guilt for being immature and not handling friendships properly, guilt for pushing others away, guilt for not being the kindest i could be. i'd rather disappear from my old friends' lives and put distance between us, but over and over, i see them reach out in small ways and it makes me conflicted. i don't like being in their lives when there's so many things unsaid, so many things i don't even know how to verbalize to them.

that period of my life is deeply entrenched in the memories of an unhealthy relationship i was in. those memories practically obscure everything else. outlines of a person i devoted myself to, silence that follows questions about who i'm seeing, burning, searing pain from a person who should've known better but still greedily drank from my body until i became hollow, a friend lashing out at me and guilt tripping me for not leaving that person, the aftermath of me lashing out at that friend for hurting me. i think about it sometimes and feel so disconnected, knowing that i was there and experienced those emotions firsthand. i don't like high school. i was a mess in high school.

seeing those old friends means remembering what happened. seeing those old friends means remembering how tired i was. i think about how they see me, and i wonder if the image i left behind was a fractured one, with pieces missing and the overall image foggy and distant.

i hope that the version of me that's here is a nicer one.

love, irid