skullcrusher

ode to a girl i no longer love

my love had eyes like the moon in a solar eclipse: a darkness, ever-swallowing, only comparable in its impact by her light, always, without falter, shining through at their edges. my love had eyes that were blinding, unshaking, the kind that make you stutter, your breath catch, your being freeze; like medusa incarnate, my love took away any semblance i had of my humanity. my love could reduce my wits to a rock's in the blink of an eye; with the blink of her eye — dark, yet somehow warm, something like tree sap, something like amber lager — even sober, i could get drunk in her.

my love was pale like winter and kind like the spring that comes after. i would so often think how rarely it happens that one's soul resembles their face, but my love's face was beautiful in the way she was on the inside, clear and radiant, her pores open to take in life. my love hated life, but i knew how hedonistically she loved to live. she wanted everything, like me, so much so that the murk of her stare could not hide how hungry it was, how much she yearned for, how much she never knew i wanted to give to her. and i wanted to give her everything, too. flowers, and diamonds, and jewelery, and a cat, and song, and liquor, and home, home, home. i would have given it all to give her everything, but most of all, that. her eyes opened up to reveal windows to her dreams, and i did not need to sleep next to her to know that she dreamt of home. our two wild souls, at last, both only wanted home. maybe that first part was why we could never give each other one.

my love was pale like winter, and she was beautiful in the way her heart was, violets sprouting from her wounds, their stems tying the broken pieces together. her voice was like the color purple: mystic, and royal, and deep. her accent never missed a step when it danced on her tounge. i know perfection is unrealistic, so she could not have been it, but i dare say that, if anything, my love was fairly close. i think that even her most fatal of flaws somehow made me admire her even more. she was a painting comprised of mad brushstrokes, but i could not seem to take my eyes off even up close. i think that even then i could see that she didn't really love me, but that just meant i wanted her to all the harder.

no, my love did not love me, but i could tell she wanted to. i could see she tried to. i could see she saw a home in me, but i could see she was the type of girl who never settled. now i hope she will find someone who she wants enough to settle, but a long time ago, i was hoping that, if i stayed, that someone would be me. we were the probability. the logical outcome. the symbolism that had been hidden all along. the hints you didn't see until you saw them. the kiss in the dark at the end of the movie that suddenly makes everything make sense. we made sense, didn't we? it always ends that way, and now i wonder if she saw it, too. if she only kissed me because she wanted a happily ever after. the movies never tell you what comes after the happiness. what phase comes after the honeymoon? what about after the boy gets the girl? do the protagonists fall out of love? did our story end when we came together, or did it go on? were we the anti-heroes? did the audience watch us lose our patience? the valentine's boquets wilt? the jewlery oxidate? the wooden floors in our dream apartment wear down with our footsteps? is it routine that kills soulmates, or were we just never meant to be with each other? i guess it doesn't matter much now, anyways.

my love didn't love me, she was just hoping i could give her all the love she never had, and i can't blame her for it. i wanted to be loved, too. if i were to compare her to an animal, i think she would be a house cat, a beautiful one, with dark, long fur, though, in her tendency, she was a bit like a dog. curling up next to me in bed, but not because she loved me. dogs don't really know what love is. we were too young for that, too. dogs don't really care much for you. they just know you're warm. they just know you take good care of them. that didn't matter to me. i would have taken care of her anyways, if it wasn't for my own faults. maybe, in that way, we both deserved each other. we both deserved to be deprived of the love we couldn't give. i try not to think about it too much. i try to believe she is loved all the same now, and that someday, i will be, too. in the perfect life, i would have been the one to love her, and the other way around, but we've already established that i cannot expect perfection, so if my love cannot settle, then i will, at least, settle for believing she can be happy.

her love was alluring and fatal, and i wanted every bit of it. i'm beginning to understand persephone. why she ate the pomegranate seeds. why i know she always knew. i wanted the parts of my love's being that were crimson and lush, and the corridors of her mind that were cold and barren, too. i also wanted everything. i also wanted a happy ending, but i would take any ending, if it was with her. i would take the underworld. i would take becoming the anti-hero. i would take her not loving me, if it meant she would still sleep next to me at night. i contained so much of this and was able to hide so little. my love was the kind of girl who made you spill over. she was the kind of girl who made your speak incomprehensibly. she was the kind of girl who made you write about her for hours into the night after years of not knowing her. she was the kind of girl you would swallow six pomegranate seeds for, even if they sent you to hell and back.

now the day, like a blade, leaves the night's veins open, bleeding out into the most beautiful dawn in a tenderly straight line and i'm left wondering if sunrises or flowers or the sea or my poems still mean anything to her. if the few sentences we have reluctantly shared in the past few years meant to her what they meant to me. if she remembers hushed conversation and bare photographs the way i do. and i do. oh, i do. i remember everything.

to my love, i would have given everything. and she wanted everything. it's just a shame she didn't want it from me.