10 Years

Very strange for me to write this one, about my first love and how the experience utterly broke me.

An anniversary is supposed to be a special occasion
A celebration of love
But I can't celebrate an anniversary alone
So I just dug through my possessions until I found some trace of you
I deleted all the pictures of us long ago
I must've been angry
Or maybe just hopeful
But either way,
They're gone.
Which is why I was surprised to see that fluffy toy still placed snugly in it's own shelf of my bookcase
A snow tiger with a little heart held in it's mouth
It says "Love you"
And that's all that I have left
Not just of you,
Because you really aren't what I'm writing about or what I'm celebrating,
But also of the person I used to be
I think I keep it to remind me of that person,
That child,
And how his heart blazed with a feeling that I've only ever managed to capture flickers of
Truly, he witnessed love in it's rawest form,
Full of ignorance and naiivete and overwhelming, choking passion
Too young to understand and far, far too in love to care about what it might do to us
Wrapped in a cocoon of mutual adoration where the confusing, terrifying world outside could hardly touch us
I almost feel like you burnt so brightly that you stole my flame away
So when we finally fell apart you could go on to blaze your trail, to spread your fire and take the light with you wherever you went
While I was left to fade
Consigned to the consequences of our mistake
And I have never felt anything close since then.
It's getting close to the 10th anniversary of the first time we took that big leap
Which is pretty f*****g disgusting when you think about it, but I try not to,
I just wonder why you found happiness and I didn't
I don't spite you and I never ever will
But I envy you, truly,
And that's what this is really about;
Envy. The envy of a boy who let a girl carve out his skull like a pumpkin and then let her walk away with all the valuable contents,
All the potential and the power and the ambition and the genius
Leaving her own issues and damage and loose screws sat where his brilliant mind has been.
And thus she walked out of that tragedy still alive and kicking and ready to live and love and grow and taste the sweet blossoms of recovery.
At least that makes one of us.