to catch a fleeting moment

the moments novels are made of

a letter [or recollection] to a lost love,

out of the blue you asked me why i broke up with you [why wasn't five years of commitment enough to make me stay] of course i might've answered if your head hadn't been nose deep into a book that i knew from your endless ranting of your numerous dislikes that you had never enjoyed the book to begin with no matter how many times you reread it, you didn't even like the parts that reminded me of our happiest moments [that was my favorite book, by the way].

it couldn't have been but a day after i asked you out -and you said yes- that you asked me what my favorite color was [somehow you hadn't caught on to the fact that it was the same pale green that your eyes were] and if i wasn't so scared that you would've laughed at me for being unoriginal or too cliche i might've told you the truth, instead i simply told you it was yellow because i knew that was yours [the same yellow as my least favorite dress you had bought me on our third anniversary].

maybe about the fifth attempt at asking you out [the first four were quickly forgotten about because you were talking too much -or maybe just listening too little- to care] you simply said that you would think about it, this might've been ok had you just rejected me [because i was far too familiar with the pain in my heart that came with your rejection] but you kept me waiting for over two months and for some reason i let you [what i really wanted to do was tell you that i hated the looks of pity your friends gave me when i trailed after you like a lost puppy dog that was promised a treat].

the first time we met [three entire years before we had started dating - but only two months before i started loving you] you had looked me in the face and told me that i looked too plain, no one would love me [i'm not sure what had really ever endeared me to you but i wish i did so i could cut it off as soon as it started to bud] if you wouldn't have been my brother's best friend i might've told you off [or at least stood my ground] but one pleading look from my brother and my mouth was firmly closed [my heart wide open - which you took little to know time figuring out].

they told me you found someone new, your friends that is [we hadn't talked in a total of three years and i was beginning to think that our time together was nothing but the moments novels are made of, the kind that have a sick twist at the end and leave your favorite character bleeding for someone else's repair] which might've made me smile had i not seen your green eyes a mere day before when you, once again, asked me why we broke up [it seemed to me that you hadn't moved on at all, and some dark part of me smiled at the knowledge that i was moving on and you were still stranded] this time you were all ears. i wouldn't have responded [i shouldn't have] but the way your eyes held a pleading glint made my heartstrings faintly tug in a way i was all too familiar with, so instead of keeping quiet like i always had, i told you all the things i would've said when we were together had you just taken the time to listen. by the end of it your eyes glistened and i almost felt sorry for you [i wish i could say i didn't but the part of me that loved you begged for your happiness] but before i could even speak, you got up and walked away [almost as if i was the one who broke /your/ heart - that same small, dark part of me hopes i did].

five years after i built up all of that false confidence and spilled it as mended confessions of my heartbreak, i learned how to chase after moons instead of stars [you were a star, too big and bright that if i stood too close i would've -and too many times, did- gotten burnt up]. i wrote new moments that made up romance novels instead of dramas. i dreamt new dreams that left butterflies in my head. most importantly, i told the girl i loved that my favorite color was lavendar [the shade of my grandmother's journal, not the shade of your used to be eyes, and not the shade of my least favorite dress] and my second favorite color was the clear blue of her eyes.