Confession.

I'm in love with you. You've never given me anything and yet I've fallen in love with you. I don't need your sympathy, I don't need your pity. And I know you don't love me back but there was a time when I couldn't imagine life without you. Life without you wouldn't be worth living and even thinking about it filled me with fear and dread. You were everything to me. There is nothing special about Newcastle. You made this city beautiful for me. Because this city is where I met you and this city is where you are and all I ever wanted was to be with you forever. I loved you that much. 

But sometimes I'm scared for you. I don't know what you're doing and what your ambitions would lead to. I don't know if it's safe and I don't know if it's healthy or if it's recommended. I'm afraid that you will go somewhere that I cannot follow and you will retreat into a place where you will be alone forever. And you will be happy. But I will lose you forever. Not that I ever had you. I don't know if you're truly happy. But a part of me quietly feels that you are still searching; always searching for something. And you wish to go higher and higher, as far up as possible and as far away from the possibility that the feelings and insecurities that used to hurt you before can hurt you again. But that feels like running. I may be wrong but in my mind, what you seem to be looking for to me is a peace and contentment where you don't need to run, you don't need to climb higher; where you can just be and be happy and content. And you don't seem to have found it yet. You feel that you can find it maybe in climbing higher and exploring new avenues of feeling good but maybe you're not looking in the right ways or in the right places. I want you to find what you're looking for, but I don't think it's where you think it is. I'm afraid that you won't find it because you're looking in the wrong place, and I'm also afraid that in looking there you will go further than I can follow and you will be lost in your new direction even though it isn't what you wanted in the first place. But maybe I'm just scared of losing you. 

Moulin Rouge!

I have always been a child with a particularly fragile heart. Maybe that is why I have always instinctively guarded it with a jealous zeal. Always making sure that I would never get hurt almost like an overprotective father who tries his best to shield his daughter. But also like the father who tries to shield his daughter, in the end she rebels and ends up making the very same mistakes he tried to prevent her from making. Some lessons cannot be learned any other way. 

I do not want to be accused of over romanticising certain things but in a way I now know and feel things in a way I never was able to before. What did I understand of love before this? I knew it was a concept. Nothing more! It was nothing; nothing compared to the knowledge now and the feelings they bring with them. It is like seeing a watercolour painting and then going to the scene and taking in the picturesque view yourself. There is so much difference. What did I feel before this when I saw examples and depictions of love? Nothing! I saw nothing! And I felt nothing. But now, I understand it in a way that I could not have a few years ago. And with the understanding comes the appreciation. And with that comes the tears when you watch a sad love movie. It feels so real now. When it used to feel like just a film. 

I've always been of the sappy sort. I've always been a hopeless romantic and a true believer in love. I've longed for it with every fibre of my being long before I even knew I did. And being like the overprotective father, I did my best to hide it. But there's no point in hiding it now is there. What is the point of further concealing who you are to the eyes of the world. I'd sooner just show my true self and be free. I do not want to overthink and overlook into these matters. But now with my newfound sensitivity to matters such as these, I wonder if he was here to teach me something. No doubt I have learned a lot from my time with him. All of them ground shattering, all of them painful. But a lot nonetheless. I can appreciate now all the lessons I learned from him whether advertently or inadvertently. He never meant to teach me anything. Indeed he couldn't care less about what is going on. This exists in my world you see, not in his. But of course learned from it I did. I wonder sometimes at what I have become. The overwhelming burgeoning of emotions that spill over and were never there before. It's like I've opened a whole new door to my existence and I didn't even know it was locked to begin with. Love can do many things to you. And the one thing it will most definitely do, is to make your heart bleed. Tears flowed mighty freely when I watched the Moulin Rouge. And it is all well and good and all too easy to imagine yourself in the place of Satine and Christian. We are all after all, the protagonists in our own stories. But a thought struck me as I was watching the movie and it did not please me but what if instead of them, I was in actuality the Duke? I could see many similarities in my own story to the Duke. How he insists on making something happen even when it's hopeless and he tries everything; everything to attain someone who never loved him and would never love him. How he goes about his efforts with a dogged determination like he was sure that they would work to make her love him but in the end we do see that it is all so futile. But he didn't think so. He genuinely thought that he could make it happen. And that resounds uncomfortably true with my own situation doesn't it. There is no point in trying and I should have given up and walked away a long time ago. But I kept on trying. To what avail? None whatsoever. And it is time that I realised that instead of sinking deeper and deeper into my desperate efforts like the Duke did and getting enmeshed in somebody else's love story. Yes it is somebody else's love story. And it doesn't matter that it is breaking my heart into a million different pieces. I am just in the way. 

Portrait of a Woman

She was fair, with a milk white marble complexion and dark hair framed her face. Her almond shaped eyes were small, but dark and piercing and she had the most intense stare he remembered encountering in a long time. There was no joy in her expression. It was like something carved in stone; immobile, cold and staring. He felt unease immediately around her. There was no commonality, no warmth. Just a sort of disconnect which most people would automatically shy away from even without understanding why. She was not so much remarkable as she was out of place so he looked away and concentrated on other more interesting matters while she faded into the background. He saw her other times that night, flitting through the room, one moment here, another there. And it always struck him as odd, seeing her slouching there talking to someone. She didn't seem the type to smile or to laugh and yet she did all those things. It felt incongruous to a fault. And once again he turned away and put her out of his mind. He would much rather focus on the pretty girl making waves and dazzling in the centre of the room; with her chandelier laugh and her bright animation. Now that was a woman he could be interested in. So full of life, so full of energy; not stiff and carved in stone. No, she would be relegated to the darkest corners of his mind and soon forgotten just like the rest of the inconsequential things he encountered. Tonight was a night for fun and merry-making and that warm blooded woman with the smile, he thought as he made his way over to her and further and further away from the other woman. 

She was awkward and fumblingly clumsy in her social skills. Such a loud laugh, and such boisterousness, he remarked as he watched her laugh at a joke. Her eyes crinkled into tiny slits as she guffawed and hollered in entertainment. It was not that she was inept in any way, but he found her clumsy attempts uncomfortable and as such he would much rather mingle with those whom he could speak more freely. There was just something remarkable strange although subtle about her comments and the timing with which she makes them. Like a hit and miss although mainly missing. She sat still in a silence sometimes like she had absolutely no interest in the conversation but then when she chipped in, there was a jarring miss every time. He felt slightly sorry for her if he thought about it too much. But as for itself, it was inconsequential and he did not think about it too much. He did not think about it very much at all. It was much easier to lose himself in the sparkling conversation going on than to wonder too much about the odd girl who seemed somewhat out of place. Leave it to someone else. Someone else would talk to her he was sure. But it need not be him. There were much more interesting things to do. 

She was kind, and she was helpful, he thought absently as she returned with what he needed and deftly tended to his condition. He sipped the hot cocoa slowly, minding the heat while somewhere in his peripheral vision he saw her moving beside him, not sure what she was doing. Already her kindness was slipping from his mind. Of course it would go without saying would it not. He was grateful. She asked him how he was feeling. Good he said, and his mind continued to wander; caught up in other things, things he would not remember if asked about; just drifting. Beside him he vaguely felt her press a cushion onto his lap while she tried to make him comfortable. She had always been nice and she had always been kind. She was always helpful when she could be and somewhere in the back of his mind he knew that. And if someone were to ask he would definitely say so. But since no one is asking, really it's of no consequence isn't it. His thoughts were already quickly drifting towards other things, his mind on other people; what they did, what antics they got up to and he chuckled inwardly. They were such fun people, such funny people. They were an absolute joy to be around. Of course it didn't matter that they weren't here now, it was hardly the place and time to expect them to be, he casually thought as he accepted the biscuits she lay before him. And of course her too, she was nice, he contemplated vaguely before drifting off again into thoughts of their delightful company and the delightful things they could get up to the next time around. It wasn't that he didn't appreciate her kindness, no. It's just that there's nothing much to think about her kindness is there as his mind wandered to the girl he met the other day. She had helped him pick up a book. How so very kind of her. 

I Really Wish I Weren't So in Love

Today is three days into my journey. I'm starting to see now that staying in this would continue to cause me a world of hurt and yet, I am not ready to give him up. Such is the strength of my love for him. But I am starting to see that he cares not about me. And part of me is starting to wonder if I should just start trying to leave this behind. I am afraid. Afraid of navigating this world without him. He is not only the man I love, he is also something I cling on to, and to me he symbolises hope; a hope that the childlike part of me wishes to believe in. That true love, or what seems like it will prevail in the end. That love, exists for me and will prevail. He is love to me. A part of me is afraid that giving him up is me giving up my last chance for love because somewhere inside I believe that I can do it no more. I can fall for no more men and have my heart broken all over again. And if this isn't going to turn out then there will be no more after this. And another part of me wants there to be no more after this because I love him and I want no other. So in a lot of ways, this feels like my shot at love and so I have needed with a desperation for this to work out. 

But every single time I remember what he said to me, it stings and I feel that sharp pain inside my chest. Every single time I remember what he wrote to me, it pains me and I want to turn away but I can't seem to. And every single time I remember what happened, it breaks my heart and turns my mind inside out. I have questioned the fairness of what happened for days and weeks and months. I have spent much tears crying over the questionable fairness of it. Because it hurt me to the core. It shaped and moulded my character in a way that I never wanted it to be and yet I still can't seem to get over my burning love for him. Even through all that anger and hurt.  It was to me, like a message from the world confirming every single fear that seemed to be lurking at the back of my mind about my worth to be loved. And if I wasn't questioning it then, it made me question it now. I didn't understand how it could be so that it could have gone so horribly wrong. How within a single day and night, my heart was broken many times over and trampled by a herd of horses. And how should it be fair?

Every single time I think about it, it winds me. It knocks me off balance and it turns my world and my logic and my reason and my mind inside out. It turns my faith inside out. And it turns my hope away. Far far away and despair comes in to take its place. They say that there are many sorrows in this world, and love is one of them. I do not want to feel guilty for feeling miserable over my broken heart. I do not want to feel like I am being ungrateful. I am extremely grateful but my broken heart is also very real. I want to spend my days curled up and crying over my broken heart. I want to spend hours without needing to worry about responsibilities, crying over him. I want to be free to express and feel my misery without having to lug it all around with me in a heavy sack over my back and having to explain and justify it away to everyone and to myself. I love him, he doesn't love me and now I am fucking sad about it! So what! I am nowhere near over him and I am still very dearly in love him. I really wish I weren't. 

The Prayer.

Father in Heaven, if it is the time for me to let go of him and if I absolutely must then give me the courage and the strength to get through what must happen. Lord, I am not ready to let him go, and I don't know if I ever will be. I don't know if these are the words of a girl with a lack of courage to be alone and to let go of another love; all I know is that I love him Father and I am not ready to let him go. Even though all he's done and the words he has said ring through my ears and play in my mind, and with every replay they cut a deep gash in my already bleeding heart, I love him and I am not ready to let him go. A part of me, the childlike part keeps thinking that a love such as this must surely prevail. How can it not? It is unthinkable! But I am not looking at the world as it is. And another part of me knows that it is not true. Why must I fall in love with someone such as he? Why couldn't I just not, and spare myself such agony. Why must I make this step? I don't understand Father in Heaven and I wish you would just give me the answers because my poor heart cannot wonder anymore. It's broken beyond repair and all that I thought I believed in in love is slipping away through my fingers. I cry now for love. So if I must let him go, something I believe I may never be able to do, then give me the courage and give me the strength Lord, for I cannot do it alone. 

He doesn't love me. Why doesn't he love me? Why can't he love me? 

When I could demand affection and not be ashamed by it. 

Conversations I Can Only Have With Myself.

"The mania is gone I guess and now all that's left is a deep, deep sadness." 

She reached out for my hand and hugged me close to her freshly floral scented body. The perfume comforted me somehow, like a touch of realism reminding me that she is there for me now. The hug was warm and comforting and I wept silent tears into her shoulders. 

We both know there was nothing we could do. And the best thing to do would be to just ride it out. When did this get so hard?