Delilah | H.S

004

d e l i l a h

When I was eight years old, my mother often only spoke to me with the intention of trying to explain what love was with the definition that she conjured up. Every time she would speak about it, it was as though she was using her every breath. The breath that she had birthed into me.

No matter how she said it or how she even began to word her every sentence, it was like she wanted me to take in as much information as possible. The information that was a part of her previous life stories or her utmost thoughts.

But despite everything that she ever said to me- out of all- I can distinctly remember the way she talked about her first encounter with heartfelt emotions.

As she had told me only once before, it had occurred during her earlier parts of life- when she was sixteen years of age. Although her age of youth, she was anything but like the girls her age. She was never smitten with being typical- something that her mother despised. She never had a boyfriend. And frankly, it was not because of her immense love for sports or skateboards. Nor was it because of her hatred for the colour pink. It was solely because she was not interested. She was not interested in what other people thought of her; both boys and girls.

It was something that her father commended her for. He loved the fact that despite everyone's constant annoyance and wanting of her to change, she stayed true to who it is that she wanted to be. Her mother was the exact opposite, though. She often tormented my mother for her said boyish ways. She degraded her character and made her feel less than. My mother's outer shells of beauty slowly crumbling into dust. With every degradation thrown at her, it became a rudder and rudder awakening. The wall that she had once sturdily built, falling. She became so paranoid of the fact that her mother thought less and less of her that she became everything that she wanted her to be. Everything that did not want herself to be.

When the boy that was constantly hitting on her asked her to go steady, she agreed. She agreed without fully understanding what she was getting herself into. She never had someone hold her hand or kiss her lips. She never had someone tell her that she was worth something. She grew something that she had been missing for so long: a pounding sensation that faded in with her heart, always, when he was near. The type of sensation that she wondered how she could have ever went so long without wanting to engage in it. A sensation that she did not have the words for. Words to describe. Nothing except for the fact that she loved him.

Without realizing, she changed everything she knew for him. She changed who she was and everything that she was capable of. She was capable of playing on the elite sport teams. She was capable of going almost her four years of high school without wanting an ounce of makeup. But, she threw that all away for a boy. One that made her feel worthy. One that made her feel comfortable. One that after a month, was gone.

There was no going back, though, to the person that she once was. Frankly, because she could not remember a time when she was different. She could not remember who she once was.

She told me what I thought was everything. She told me what I thought was the only basis of love and every relationship. The way she explained it- the way that she poured it out to me- I thought every relationship was about change. Change of self and implementing change in each other.

She also made me feel as though the two were drawn together from the minute they first laid eyes on one another. Like everything around them did not matter. Like everything around them was unreal. No trees. No wind. Nothing. Like their relationship consisted of everything that was inseparable.

Vividly, I could remember the facial expressions that she had as she talked about love. They pranced around my mind- around my brain- deleting every other memories as she  metaphorically stomped on them. She did all she could to be at the front of my mind- and it worked. She was always there. Always at the front of my mind no matter what.