I knew love. Love was six foot two with a goofy grin and eyes bluer than the sky. Love liked to hunt. Love liked to fish. But most of all, love liked to be with her. Love liked to watch scary movies and tease. Love was afraid of spiders but more than that-being hurt. I let love go. I may never know him again.
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"I'm fine," at least until I come across a picture of you. "I'm fine," until I return to a place I was with you last. "I'm fine," until I think you the nicknames you called me. "I'm fine," until I remember how it felt to be with you. "I'm fine," until I remember just how much you loved me. "I'm fine," until I remember I loved you just as much. "I'm fine," until our song comes on the radio. "I'm fine," until I think of all the things I had planned in my head for us. "I'm fine," until I'm just not.
I am knelt on the bathroom floor: my hands are stained from the makeup I've rubbed off on them, my hair in tangles, and my clothes wrinkled. It's happening again. Everything is disappearing from my control. I am in shambles.
Mother finds me after ten minutes or so. She looks down at me with an unchanging face as she reaches for the makeup bag. I know the drill. I pull myself together and sit on the bathtub rim. She brushes the hair out of my eyes. Layer after layer she applies until the stains from the tears are no more. She takes the iron, curling my locks to frame my face. She sits back to admire her work. "All done." I look in the mirror. I am transformed. I met you. You enticed me. I fell for you. You fell for me. I made you laugh. You made me happy. I clung to you. You pulled me closer. I fell harder. You caught every piece of me. I put you on a pedestal. You held me even higher. I tore us down. You felt the damage. I feel it now.
Love is a strange thing. It's the thing that brings two strangers together coincidentally. You learn how they look after a fresh haircut, what their last heartbreak was like, and just how they like their tacos. It makes distance only seem like an unnecessary word in the English language until that isn't the case anymore. And just like that one replaces another and old memories get pushed behind new ones. He becomes a stranger while another is brought to the light. Everything is gone. Just like the flicker of a switch.
I am a storm cloud that has loomed all day: gloomy, but dry until I am not. I bottle everything up; every ounce of emotion and eventually it outpours unable to hold the rest. An overwhelming feeling of sadness succumbs me and my cheeks stain instantly from the flood raining down. Thoughts buzz, emotions rage. The kind of feelings that leave you reaching for your teddy bear and shying away from anything with a heartbeat.
The slight of freckles trickled along the bridge of his nose. A bright smile that surfaced as I made a corny joke. A touch that I had an attraction to him developed out of pure adoration.
He led me into a room that was indifferent to his typical taste. I followed him out of pure curiosity. The room was filled with instruments: trombones leaned against the far wall, clarinets and flutes lied in their casings, cocked half-open, along the floor, and a giant cymbal resided in the corner. It was jumbled, yet beautiful mess and right dab in the middle of the madness was a grand piano. He took a seat on the bench beside it and in his basketball shorts and Jordans, he played as if it were second nature while treble clefs and quarter notes danced on the chalkboard behind him.
As I was cleaning out my closet this morning I spied a colorful paisley in a multitude of sizes hanging in the corner. It was your purses. I sprawled them out along the floor, recognized some and wonder which era of life the others came from. I dug through each one, unsure of what I was in pursuit of. I came across few things: an old Kohls receipt, spare change, and a gum wrapper-the kind you always carried with you.
Driving down a straight and narrow country road, farms lining either side for miles and miles but every mile is leading me straight to you.
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Ariel Wolfeself-proclaimed writersomewhat avid reader
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