What we did, when we did the things we wanted to do

He said, "I knew it, but from the minute it began, it was ruined." 

I didn't know that, though. The minute it began, we we like children, lacking the expectations and heavy burdens people our age tend to bring to the table. We laughed. We held hands. And it's probably true that when we said "goodbye," we should have remained only pen-pals.
But unlike children at summer camp, we followed through on our plans to meet again and clung to what could be; if only it would.

He frequently does me the favor of reminding me that his intentions are every bit as insincere as my own, and in doing so, he paints himself into a mirror reflection of every other man I've known. And I am just the same as always.

So he wants me to change; but if I changed, he still wouldn't want me.

We could talk until the sun came up and still resolve nothing.
We could mend all the broken bits, but the glue would not bind.

I guess these are the reasons why, when my favorite author writes words, he says just what I desire and the opposite of what I have.

"Love is looking at a person and knowing for a fact that they will eventually sag, wrinkle, and wreak of rot & spoil... it's looking at someone and knowing that you will fight them and they will fight you... it's foreseeing the unforgiving and tumultuous clash of your respective flaws and egos and knowing that you will, at times, hate this person... it's taking toll of everything you hate in yourself, in the world at large, and in the whole of existence and despite the overwhelming purposelessness of the struggle only being able to face that terrible future through the lens of another person's company. Love is knowing when you're not that person and seeing a truth so unbearable you ignore it and push forward until you burn out like a twittering, hopelessly over-romantic, annoying little candle at the end of its wick and only ever regretting that you have nothing further to throw into the flame."

He made it sound so easy; as if I didn't have to work for it.

But much like children, we only give what we feel we might receive. We hold back but feel ripped off when the other does so. We refer to tiny favors as sacrifices of enormity and we continually think only of ourselves.

And these are the reasons why there is no resemblance of love here.

Because all the poet's claims are true. And the most selfish part of me wants to cup my hands and hold them out, asking him to please fill them with the sweetest, most pure thing that I so desperately want, but so tragically will never reciprocate. I tried explaining this, that it will never be equal, that I will never deserve it. 

But he said, "Love's not about deserving something. It's about giving it out, even when it's not deserved."

Fighting. Kicking. Screaming.

I stopped for a split second to watch the tide roll in and wait for the lamest tears ever to make their escape. Whenever I blink, my wet eyelashes rub against the lenses of my glasses and they get all smudgey and then I'm like the sweaty ten year old with dirty nerd glasses and a koolaid mustache...only, minus the mustache, I guess.

So I was blinking and looking around and my lack of night vision paired with the bright lights and dark sky and my dirty glasses made my eyes sting and I said aloud, "so, who am I?" It was a question I've avoided for the past few months and I realized I was finally able to breathe again after having asked it. I'm not sure how people can journey through an entire lifetime without stopping continually to question their existence.

If the stars were not set in the sky to light the path along which I traverse, then why? And if my very being is just a coincidence then I should immediately ingest the contents of my medicine cabinet before sleep, because death alone would be sweeter than a life which lacks purpose.

If my days are meant for getting ahead, for hating anyone, for greed and apathy and characteristics most natural to me, then it would better if I never was.

If the beliefs of one differ so extremely from those of another, then the chasm driven by such differences will inevitably only grow.

But if he ties a rope around his waist, and I around mine and we fight for it then we might slow the tearing apart and have some kind of a bridge. But a bridge doesn't do much good when there isn't anyone willing to cross it.

And if one such merger were right, then it would feel right.


Right or wrong, I fight and I kick and I scream and I tell myself, "I will soul-search tomorrow, not today."