I crossed paths with the purest love I’d ever know when I was younger. Almost three years later, it hasn’t changed much.
There is nothing else I can keep focus on today. My mind keeps going back to him. He is my safe place with a promise to protect me. Unlike the others in the past who have broken my heart. It makes him special. He seems to be someone I want, but I feel in my gut that maybe he isn’t really all I make him out to be. Why is there this longing - this want to protect and love? When I know that in the end I am not the one he will choose to keep. There is nothing left to want, nothing to have or to hold. Even memories of lives past and from earlier in this life are slowly fading. All I have left are images and pictures that someone else has taken.
He is a he. Do you see my problem? He is a he who will never understand what it means for me to be who I am and completely grasp my work. He is a he who has believes that I cannot want him in the way I could want her. But that isn’t true. I love the heart – his heart.
When I smile at him, he sees a friend who cares, and I do. Am I satisfied that it is all he sees? No. Instead of wanting to make him see, I want to be satisfied. What does that say about me? I will not change him; I will not change what he sees or believes. All that is in my grasp and control is me.
A quick gun shot to the head or slow invading poison? I close my mind and black out the emotion that does nobody any good.
It has been a year and six months. I’ve adapted to the numbness and ordained the ignorance that promises to be bliss. Sometimes there are wisps of memories in which his face flashes before me in my mind and I can almost hear his voice. What breaks my spirit occasionally are mornings, that I wake from lucid dreams, jolted from feeling his hand in mine, the warmth of his smile and the familiarity of his closeness. On those hot mornings I lay in bed, flushed and irritated. It couldn’t be meant to be - so what if he was the one who answered my soul call, so what?! That was two years ago, he didn’t even know me that well back then.
This is now. I’ve promised myself a fresh start, a fair chance at love again.
After a few months of strutting around with my heart on my sleeve, held down by an elastic arm band, I meet her. It is nothing like I knew. No intense familiarity, no obviously apparent understanding of souls. Like a new page with so much to discover, I could travel into her world and be oblivious to everything around. Not caring for what people thought when I was with her, she’s a she who gets it, they probably didn’t bother anyway.
We didn’t walk around holding hands, just proximity was enough. She smiles and I feel butterflies in my stomach. Around her was a gentleness and security and being with her was as natural as could be. I really like her and begin to believe that she is special. Her warmth is different, it envelops my fragile heart. I hear her heart beat in the still night; the delicate thumpa-thump is new. I like it, its soothing. I still retain all control of my actions and allow this to go slower than the pace of a snail walking slowly.
On a hot summer night, my phone lights up. His name is flashing on the screen. Ofcourse I pick up, but I regret it the minute I do. His voice, it makes me melt and become passionately fierce at the same time. He is telling me about a woman, another woman. I am not jealous of her; I understand his desire for love. He had let her go – I’m still not elated, instead I feel sorrow. ‘How is your heart?’ I ask him. My love, his heart – my heart… mine. My instinct is back - to love and protect. It will all be alright, I promise. Within seconds, I go back three years, only this time there is no confusion.
I turn to look at her, my angel, as she sleeps peacefully. I move in close and hold her. There is only one thing that can be done – I know what to do.
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