I've always wanted to fly - poetry

INTERLINKED

I'M not sure if anyone has ever loved me. People have said they do. Almost every night i'm told that I'm loved, just before I turn out my light. But once you say it so many times, in that cold, empty tone, it loses its meaning. So when I was told I was loved, by the first person who ever chose me, I felt it. They weren't obliged to love me. There were no strings linking us together. When we held hands, our blood did not flow together, forcing words out of our mouths because that's what was expected. They chose me, in a room full of people. They saw me, and wanted me. Of their own accord. And that filled my heart with a warmth so unfamiliar that it burnt me at first, caused me to say things I never would've in my own mind right now. But they didn't notice. That was the only version of me they had ever known. And things were perfect. Until, suddenly, they weren't. Eventually, the heat died out. Like always, I couldn't keep the fire ablaze on my own, when they were constantly smothering it with ignorant words, words that hurt too much more than usual because they were not forced by blood. They had grown tired of me. I had loved too hard.

THAT love has been gone for a year now, but sometimes, I still feel that same heat in my chest. When I hear their name, I feel it. When I'm lying awake, and the world is silent, I hear their voice echoing through my mind. I have to try my best not to torture myself, digging through the depths of my memory, trying to find the moment I finally took it too far. I have read over our conversations time and time again, not once being hit with an epiphany, something to give a reason for all this pain.

I KNOW that love has been gone for a year now, and i find love in other ways. I feel love when I see my brother smile. I feel love when I get home and my cat scratches at the door, desperate to see me again. I feel love when someone compliments me on something I have created, and not just my body or my hair. I feel love when my best friend tells me she listened to my favorite song, and now it's her favorite too. I feel love for myself, sometimes. I love myself when the sun hits my face, filling me with warmth, but not the kind that's artificial. The kind that pours through the trees on a warm summer's day. And I don't feel strange, for loving things like that. I always thought it to be too "fundamentally happy." but it's nice, to love quietly. I love myself when I'm out walking and a cat brushes up against my leg. It chose me. All it's looking for is mindless affection. But this time, it won't hurt. It's strange, how love comes back to us like that. And, most of all, I feel love for myself when I stare at my own reflection. Knowing that no matter what happens, I will no longer be a tinted version of myself. I am free to love as me. And I will. Someday. I will be interlinked.