A Cry for Help.

Hey, Stranger.

How are you doing?

Okay, I guess.

I keep starting that way because it sounds polite, because it sounds like someone who still remembers how conversations are supposed to go. Truth is, I’m not alright. I haven’t been for a while, and pretending otherwise has started to feel like a secret I didn’t sign up for.

Lately, my mind refuses to stay in one place. It wanders far away from here, away from this town and its familiar dust, away from the routines that overwhelm me. I imagine buying a a few acres of land on top of a hill, somewhere deep in Ssembabule, where the mornings are quiet and the nights aren’t interrupted by memories. I imagine keeping Ankole cows, slow-moving, dignified long-horned creatures who drink dew and busk in hot sun the whole day. I think about straying so far from home that I forget the way back entirely. Learning a new language. Changing my name. Living off the grid. Becoming unrecognisable to the versions of myself that keep disappointing people.

Sometimes I think about death too, but not in a suicidal way. I think about a “good death,” most preferably in my 90s. One where the wind is the last thing to brush my skin. One that doesn’t involve the suffocating noise of this town, rather only the peaceful chirping of bright feathered birds. A calm ending. A clean one.

It hit me today though, without warning, that I don’t think of you anymore.

That startled me.

Because, I recall of when I used to think of you constantly. When I used to build you up in my head piece by piece, like a daydream I could return to whenever reality became unbearable. I used to ask myself whether I wanted the beautiful wife, the pretty kids, the troublesome grandchildren who would test my patience and soften my heart all at once. I used to picture you as brown, really brown, probably short, with a perfect sense of humor that could disarm me on my worst days. I used to paint your eyes as the stars and your smile as an ocean – beautiful I know. I used to reminisce about a woman I hadn’t even met yet, like she was already a memory waiting to happen.

And then one day, I just stopped.

Not because you did anything wrong. You only exist in my mind, after all. You never failed me. I failed you long before you had the chance to exist.

I stopped because somewhere along the way, I convinced myself that I am cursed. That I wasn’t built for love, at least not the kind that stays. That whatever lives inside me breaks things eventually, no matter how carefully I try to hold them. I stopped because I made peace with my pieces, the ones that have been broken and glued back together so many times they no longer fit perfectly. I stopped because I began to believe I had lost the capacity for love, or worse, that love and I were never meant to coexist for long.

But am I actually cursed?

I don’t know for sure.

What I do know is this: I cannot last more than two months in a relationship. Two months feels like a deadline my body knows about before my mind does. One week I’m hopelessly in love, convinced I’ve finally found something real. The next, I wake up restless, irritated, ready to disappear. I don’t understand how I can go from being head-over-heels to saying "I’m done" overnight.

My demons used to own me. I won’t lie about that. Their voices humming over my head, whispering every insecurity I had ever tried to outrun. For a long time, they controlled the narrative. But not anymore. I named them. I studied them. I learned their patterns.

Now we play games together. I hold the cards. Or at least, I like to believe I do. They can’t hurt me if I’m the one deciding when the game starts and ends.

So naturally, I don’t think I can blame them again.

Maybe it’s my self-diagnosed ADHD. Maybe my brain is wired for novelty, not consistency. Maybe dopamine is the real villain in this story, hijacking my emotions and abandoning ship the moment excitement turns into familiarity. It made sense at first. It was neat. Clinical. Comforting, even.

You see, in the beginning, I’m electric.

I’m alive in ways that surprise me. Your voice does something to my chest. Your eyes feel like they’re peering straight into parts of me I didn’t know how to hide. Your smile opens dimensions I swear I’ve never visited before. I wake up excited, eager to learn everything about you. Your favorite songs. The way you like your tea. The tiny habits you don’t even notice about yourself yet.

Even when we argue in that first month, I’m calm. Patient. Curious. Conflict feels like exploration, not a threat. I miss you constantly, and when I close my eyes at night, I can almost feel you beside me. That first month is intoxicating. It feels like purpose. Like arrival.

Then the second month comes.

Quietly. Ruthlessly.

Your texts, once thrilling, start to feel heavy. The constant “Good morning, how are you babe?” begins to sound like “oh shit, here we go again.” Something inside me recoils, and I hate myself for it. I try to force the feeling back. I really do. But my brain has already decided you’re no longer the stimulant it was chasing. The thrill fades, and with it, my patience.

If I’m honest, the disgust scares me more than the boredom. I don’t recognize myself in those moments. I watch myself detach in real time, like someone slowly pulling their hand away from a flame they once swore they needed to survive.

It sounds cruel when I say it out loud. Because it is.

But then I have to stop and ask myself the question I keep avoiding: am I really blaming my brain chemistry for being a terrible partner?

Yes. And no.

Because the truth is, it’s not just about dopamine. That explanation is too easy. Too forgiving. What really overwhelms me is routine. Seeing the same person every day. Being expected. Being known. Consistency feels like a demand I never agreed to. It feels like pressure, like responsibility, like losing control.

And control is the part I don’t like talking about.

And by the way, I don’t cheat. I never have. That line matters to me. Instead, I do something that feels cleaner but cuts just as deep. I tell you that you deserve better. I tell you it’s not you, it’s me. Then I leave. I don’t look back, not yet. Because looking back would require accountability, and accountability would require me to sit with the damage I’ve done.

I used to believe that if I found someone who loved me despite my flaws, someone who truly saw me and chose me anyway, someone who wanted to know where and what I was doing at all times, someone who wanted to teach me how to love again, that everything would click into place. I thought that kind of love would save me. Ground me. Fix whatever keeps short-circuiting inside my chest.

I was wrong.

That kind of love terrifies me.

The moment someone stays, really stays, the voices resurface with better arguments. They ask why you’re still here. They tell me you’re pretending. That you’re only passing time. Slowly, you transform in my mind. From understanding to nagging. From patient to demanding. From love to obligation. Eventually, I convince myself I can’t breathe anymore, and I end it before you can see how ugly my fear has become.

So, I start planning my next escape.

Next time, I tell myself, I’ll choose someone nonchalant. Someone distant. Someone who forces me to chase, because chasing makes me feel alive. My demons clap sarcastically in the background, congratulating me on finding “the one.” She won’t mind if I disappear for days. She’ll understand my busy schedule. She won’t ask too many questions.

For a while, it works.

I feel safe because nothing is required of me. I imagine a future without having to show up consistently, a future that gives me ample space to reset. I call it peace. I call it maturity. I call it perfection.

Until the loneliness creeps in.

One quiet night, I realize she’s a thousand miles away emotionally, and I’m the one who built the distance. Panic follows. Resentment soon after. The same voices that praised me before now accuse her of not loving me enough. Of not being clingy. Of not caring. The very trait I admired becomes the evidence I use against her.

Eventually, I accuse her of cheating. Not because she did, but because I need an exit that feels justified. And when the door opens, I run.

It usually takes about two months for the clarity to hit home. Two months for the noise to die down. Two months for me to realize I broke something real. I replay conversations. I recognize the effort you made. I feel every bit of pain I caused you.

By then, shame has already made a home inside me.

I send a random apology text. Nothing dramatic. Just enough to ease my conscience. But in your world, I’m already gone. A ghost. A cautionary tale. A joke you warn your friends about.

Fact is, I don’t know what’s wrong with me.

Some days, I tell myself maybe she cursed me. Other days, I suspect the curse is just a convenient story I tell to avoid responsibility. Maybe none of this makes sense because I keep refusing to sit still long enough to let it make sense.

Perhaps some of us weren’t built for the kind of love that stays.

Or maybe we were, and we’re just terrified of what it would demand of us.

I don’t know, man.

What I do know is that this isn’t my usual writing. This isn’t a performance or a carefully edited confession meant to sound profound. This is me admitting that something inside me is broken in a way I don’t fully understand yet.

This is my cry for help, because I can’t continue like this anymore.

~ Derick, The Imperfect Lover.