Cold metal clicked and clacked and rattled as the door slammed behind the loose laced Converse, filled with agonizing wonder in the form of an exceptionally beautiful, profoundly confused creature, who fell down the stairs and hopped back up joyously.
Fall.
Fall fall fall.
The first time falling is an experience one never forgets, even after the bruises and scrapes heal up. I had stumbled and tripped a few times but you were my first fall.
I run into our memories everywhere I go almost every day, like gift boxes in video games. I usually open them: la la la la la la, romance, love, kisses and what not... smiles and giggles.
It's over... It was months ago, what an absurd reality, the memories are right here right now, everywhere all the time. They didn't go away like you did.
I wonder if you run into the little gift boxes too. You probably ignored them until they stopped coming, or maybe you're too busy walking the streets with her to ever notice them. How I wonder though.
I've always wondered what love was. A blessing or a curse? A backhanded compliment?
I thought I discovered it when I found you. But I see now that I've discovered something far more dark and complex than the warm fuzzy romanticized cotton candy of a concept I thought I was getting into.
I did I hold on you ask?
How could I let go? Complete surrender, infinite hope and sacrifice, helpless enamoration, forever... Isn't that what love is? Isn't that what love is supposed to be, not the temporary muses that spoil into pain and disappointment, invented by the 21st century?
You ruined love.
Before you, love was perfect and true and honest and loyal and you taught me that that wasn't always true, that love wasn't perfect, that half the time it wasn't real but I believed for so long because I believed in love.
But at some point, I had to change my definition.
You ruined love.
And love almost ruined me.
➴
How did I hold on?
Oh, the strings attached
that got all snatched up
and rearranged
by improvised circumstantial bullshit,
trying to prearrange
an algorithm for my heart to beat to
that made you feel comfortable
[Labeled: Friend], [Reality: every once and a while make out, everyday phone call, always texting, sometimes flirting, always dreaming of, (still to this day, dreaming of...) laughing hysterically in chemistry class, missing and feeling for, writing notes to, apologizing to and promising to just about every week girl until you could figure out what you wanted from me...
until you figured out you wanted nothing.
ERROR
I'm sorry that doesn't fit the syntax or vocabulary for my hearts coding,
my minds processing
my understanding
Computer crash a massive spasm of math
equations pages long
hours contemplated
a frozen screen reads "ERROR"
So I tried to come up with the best reasons I could when you were so "misunderstood"
➴
How did I hold on?
I devoured every word you wrote in sympathy, apology and insurance of our specialness.
"There's something I continue to see here," you said.
[PAUSE]
WHAT
EXACTLY
do you
see?
So you don't SEE a future
You don't SEE commitment
You don't feel ONE coherent feeling that makes sense
Yet you tell me,
"You can wait for me as long as you choose. It's up to you."
As if you'd always be here.
(a conversation from early in the relationship)
Me: "You know you'll have to wait for me someday."
You: "Yeah, I know... college and stuff..."
That's not even the type of waiting I was talking about but the point is...
As if you'd always be here. As if you'd "love" me up until and through college... for those YEARS. (You can't even keep your story straight for a week.)
....(smh) Through college... I'm sure you don't tell your friends that part.
Do you?
How did I hold on?
As if you'd always be there.
Like you implied so many times.
Now what?
➴
FALL
FALL
fall
New explosions of electrical impulses light up the brain in a chaotic frenzy
He touched her waist.
Synapses fire like angry dominos.
His lips touched hers for the first time
She giggled because his budding mustache surprised her.
New neural pathways created every time he
Smiled
Hugged her
Touched her
Spoke to her
Texted her
Every time he...
Little pops of addictive serotonin and dopamine and oxytocin, dancing in the pink slimy folds of her brain, creating a new coating of myelin* with every chance, till you became...
a habit.
*my·e·lin
/ˈmīələn/nounANATOMY•PHYSIOLOGYa mixture of proteins and phospholipids forming a whitish insulating sheath around many nerve fibers, increasing the speed at which impulses are conducted.
You changed my brain chemistry
more than anyone ever had
you changed me.
You ought to be careful about how you change people.
YOU ARE READING
The Agony of Wonder
PoetryA very sad, very freely written and poetic, very introspective recollection of lost love and all the confusion and pain it caused and the subsequent search for one's self once the other half is gone.
