It’s the bitter beam to a half-happy smile
The crisp end to your poignant laugh
It was nice to bask by your side for awhile
But I’m not too smitten with your other half.
Frigid burns shadow your sultry glow
Petulant poison seeps beneath each breath
You’re a catastrophe with a sweet “hello”
A delicate dance with a shallow death
There is no formula to love. It has infinite facets with a color and texture equally as elusive. No one teaches you how to love or how to subsequently hurt when the time comes. All the lessons on morality and integrity do not hold a candle to the force that rests between your ribs flourishing between you and that certain someone.
But when you find it, you know it. There is nothing like it. We are insignificant specs in the grand scheme of things. But when you find love, true, mutual, undiluted love, time itself bows to you.
My whole life, platonically and romantically, has been a series of deep integration followed by imminent, brutal severances. I’ve never been able to maintain friends long. I’ve never been good at keeping contact with people, in spite of how often they’re on my mind. Every romance I’ve had, I invested so much of myself into being the prefect lover for my partner, forgetting my needs, passions, and friends in the process. All the while knowing deep down that it would not last and I always had the upper hand. And, inevitably, I’ve always had to break it off.
The most recent break up was a hard one. Three wonderful years with a prefect gentleman. Loyal, strong, wise, patient, and colorful. He introduced me to a lot of things to love and his ghost haunts me around every corner. My archery, my guns, every time I cast a reel, check my oil, pass certain places, wear certain things. Everytime I stray a little too far from the city lights or skip past a country song on the radio. We’ve all been there. I wanted to be his everything. The mother to his children and loving arms to come home to after a hard day. But in the end, I knew it wasn’t love and my insecurities wrought a gruesome end. I’m sure he wishes he never met me or thinks it a waste. I cherished our time, but I feel like a parasite on his already plagued love life. Not because I treated him poorly, but because I gave him love. I gave him no choice but to love – worked him up long after he gave up on such a thing. And once he was confident and happy, I took it away.
And even as my wound is still festering, I think I have found the real thing. Someone I talk all night with. Someone I tell everything – a very foreign concept for a chameleon like myself. Someone I think about incessantly and can share my passions with ardently. There’s no fear between us, no secrecy, no fooling ourselves with facades or formalities. We’ve been friends for a long time, and best friends at that.
I’m fucking terrified. With a track record of building up and breaking down like mine, I know I don’t deserve something like I’ve found. And I’m so afraid to hurt anyone else. Everything I touch seems to turn to rot.
Life is My Palette 