Love Story

This is my swan song,

I sing a painful hymn for my lover lost.

The melody of your voice forever plays in my head,

And I never want it to fade out. 

But the sounds get discordant,

And my thoughts are distorted,

There's no escape from the cacophony of anguish in my mind.

I want to hold you close but there's nothing tangible,

All I have are memories.

Broken boy meets broken girl

This tune was never meant to be an everlasting one, 

But will be my favorite by far.

“I will sing to you every day, 

if it will take away the pain,”

No matter how lost you are,

You can always follow my voice back home

Where your heart is,

I love you.

I wrote these words to you at the end of our relationship. One of many ends that led to many beginnings which lead to many more ends, and the final end. Every time I wrote to you, I thought you’d understand me a little more. It never felt like you did. I should have known that we were star-crossed. I was the Juliet to your Romeo, only somehow more tragic. I’m still living but I’ve died a thousand times for you. I came back a little less me every time. Over these last six years I’ve been reborn.

Almost everything about me is new. New home, new career, new attitude, new lover. Yet, these old feelings remain. They cling to me like wet clothes. Pulling me down, drowning me. “You let go, and I’ll let go too.” That’s how Ms. Lauryn wrote it, but was she lying just like me? I wanted to let you go, I really did but there’s just something about you. Magnetic, hypnotic, toxic. Let go, I promise, I’ll let go too. 

We weren’t good for each other. Even on our best days, your smile hid sinister lies beneath it. Secrets you couldn’t tell me. I looked for them and I got what I asked for. All the girls you used like disposable cameras. The painful flash of the truth was too bright, leaving me over exposed, and then into the trash they go. It took me too long to realize I was just another forgotten Polaroid too. Even til this day, I feel more important than 1 actually am. 

Somehow, despite all the manipulation and abuse, I still believe I’m your favorite ex-girlfriend. The one who got away. The one who taught the lonely boy how to love. But I’m no different than all the others. Flash, flash, flash. We needed each other. I was broken and so were you. We needed someone to connect to. Someone to love and to be loved by. I knew you had issues, but so did I. That’s what sparked our flame. I wanted to fix you and make you whole. I wanted you to do the same for me. I saw the red flags and tied them around my heart. I saw the scars and kissed the wounds. I saw the flaws but they mirrored mine. I wanted nothing more than to be yours. 

I dropped to my knees and begged you to love me. I cried until my eyes were sore. When each tear fell, my heart broke a little bit more. With each fragment of my heart gone, so went a little bit of my dignity. And with each ounce of dignity went a little bit of my soul. Like raindrops in an ocean, I slowly dissipated into you. I gave you all that I had but you couldn’t return the favor. You didn’t know how to love me because you hated yourself. 

I don’t hold it against you anymore. I can’t because it’s poison. We were too young for the dreams we had. What does forever look like when you’re just starting life? We did a lot of cruel things to each other because we didn’t know any better. I’m not seventeen anymore, and I know I needed that season in my story for character development. Out of that pain grew a love that I never knew was possible. A love for myself. A need to protect my heart and my peace. I know I needed it. I just can’t understand why, after all this time, I still can’t see myself without you. 

When we’re together, I still want to love you. I still want to nurture you and care for you. However, you still get under my skin as much as you did when we first met. You say something stupid, I hang up the phone, but at the end of the day, we still make up. It’s always been the same. I remember when you first told me you loved me. I was reluctant to say it back but I knew I felt it too. I knew I couldn’t escape it. 

I sat here drowning in my own despair,

Waiting on a saving grace that never came.

I turned my eyes to the clouds,

And wondered why they always followed me,

And haunted me so.

I howled for you,

You sat there deaf to my cries.

The pain was never ending,

Clear and simple.

No matter how hard I fought,

Defeat was imminent.

There were no stars to grant my wish,

No genie to be called upon.

Only this unrelenting torment

That always reappeared.

But one day I walked away. I decided that I loved me more than I loved you. It was the best thing I could have ever done. It doesn’t matter what you meant to me. The present is what’s important — I’m no longer stuck in the loop. I won the war and the prize was myself. I’m not that same broken girl anymore, even if you’re still that same broken boy. I can love my damn self. I can love that sad, young girl the way she always wanted. I can comfort her because I know things she couldn’t imagine. 

I know what it feels like to be confident, what it feels to be whole. I know what it feels like to look in the mirror and see a smile and loving eyes looking back. She just wanted someone to care and now someone does. I will wrap all her red flags around my heart. I’ve seen the scars and I’ve kissed all the wounds. I see the flaws and I appreciate every single one. If not for her, I wouldn’t be who I am today. She is hypnotic, she is magnetic, she is magic. I will never let her go again.