A Eulogy of Failed Attempts At This Thing Called Love…
One was the first love that shone so brightly and burned so intensely. Kindled in my youth and at the height of my follies. I should have known it wouldn’t last. She was my first light, perhaps the only true one. She led me where I had not gone, and made me feel what I had not felt. Our love was real. Our love was powerful. At least mine was. I gave her all of me and dreamed up silly dreams of cabins by the lake with only toddlers for company. How silly indeed! And yet these thoughts warmed my heart at the time and filled all my waking moments. When we ended I had just the memories and her scarf to hold on to. Her scent from it refused to fade. It kept her with me longer still. Until of course when I had to face reality. My heart’s shattered pieces were put back together with copious amounts of alcohol and denial. I still don’t know if they’ve been replaced correctly. Perhaps they never will be. Perhaps I just have to accept that. The first cut is the deepest after all.
One was the second. She was the longest. The deepest in many ways. Where the first started, she furthered the journey. Many many miles further. She danced around like a wild lily in the wind and I was completely mesmerized. I chased and chased… and chased and chased. But nothing and no one can catch a lily in the wind. However, winds subside and soon she was at my feet, gazing into my eyes. A formula on a board started it all and the heat and passion of our young bodies carried it on. Long into that night and many nights after that. But I couldn’t escape my past. Both my misplaced heart pieces and the wind that carried her conspired against me. I raged against them, but I was beating an iron wall. I punched and kicked until my knuckles and shins bled. I collapsed of fatigue and failed her. And even when the wind brought her before me once more, it was nothing more than a passionate reunion, a dance between phoenixes — a flamboyant blaze, but ultimately transient.
One was third, the answer to a prayer. She ticked every box in every way. But love is so much more than boxes. Our love was raw, visceral, poetic! She understood me as no other had, and I her. We spoke of heroes, of princes and queens. We dreamed of adventure while coiled in sheets. She let me dream, she furthered my spirit. Alas though, my demons awakened again. My ghosts of lovers past. I began to see her as no more than ticks in boxes. A once united and beautiful soul, now fragmented into no more than a sum of its parts. I was unfair and I was a coward. I ran.
And now the fourth! Who shall you be ? Will you be the one or will you be the next entry. I shake at the thought…
