What am I worth next to her?

What am I truly worth to her? A shoulder to cry on? A vent to air out all of her troubles? I've said I feel like I'm drowning, but perhaps that is not the exact feeling. Perhaps I am more of an air filter, constantly taking in and taking in and then eventually, all clogged up from outside dust, giving up and requiring a new filter. That sounds about right, although I have yet to find my new filter. 

What is she to me if not dust and air falling around my vent? I keep soaking up more and more in this damp filter and I feel I'm close to breaking, being so clogged and filled up that what am I supposed to do with all of it? And what of my own dust? What of my own dead skin floating around the rooms of our relationship? My doors are all locked, and hers are blown wide open from the rushes and gusts of wind that have been pushing on my doors but I feel, at this point, that those doors need to stay shut. I need something just for me, and if that is my broken pieces, then I can make peace with that. 

Am I worth anything to her beyond my place in this relationship? I am her partner, her other half, and to her that is where I stand. What about what I feel? I certainly do not think she is my other half. I am just a barnacle on her ship, and I'm waiting to be scraped off, even eaten, if that would help. Or maybe she is my barnacle, clinging to me because that's where she has grown and she has nowhere else to go–but I know she does. Even her friends, who are my friends, do not truly like me. They think I don't know, but I do.

 Then where does that leave me? My half of friends don't even know her. They know of her, they know that I have a partner, but they have never met. I'm not sure I want them to. She would see another side of me, another version of me, that I quite like and relish in, and that part is not seen around her friends… our friends? I don't know anymore. We are so far removed that it's hard to distinguish if we are actually friends or friends by proxy. I question, often, if I'm worth anything to them or if I am just the addition that has been around, and is only still around because of her. 

What am I, at this point, if not an accessory? I am nothing more than something attached to her, at least in front of others, and that is not who I wish to be. I need to be on my own, so I need to end it…but I have yet to find the strength to do so. Ending it would imply so many things, so many possibilities and responsibilities that I'm not sure I am ready for, even though it is necessary.