Your eyes had once a mirror in which I admire myself.
Now that mirror is gone and I am forced now
to love you.
Your lips had once the taste of wild strawberries
now all I taste is the bitterness of my own failures.
not only to me but to you, too.
My heart had once love and compassion for you
now all that remains is the void of all my selfish desires.
I was your Clyde, Bonnie
Instead, our story ends not with bullets, but with the fire that stole you from my embrace.
Even now your voice haunts me.
The songs you hummed at night to me when my mind took sleep away; you gave it back.
Your voice now silent and hushed by the cold course fingers of Death.
He took you, for the best.
…
It was about a year ago when I broke up from my first real relationship. Before it, I had the occasional “it’s complicated” or the typical “middle school” relationship, but never anything I felt was tangible or truthful. That was until I met her. I could go on for hours about the story of how we met, but the truth is I would rather not remember. After I broke up with her, my life had become far more complicated than it had ever been. I asked questions that made me wonder if I ever really liked her. I was confused as to whether it was a relationship of love or lust. Growing up, I found there is quite the difference between the two.
The poem opens with “Your eyes had once… selfish desires”. These lines, in particular, acted as a reflection of my feelings. When we were together, I thought I loved her with every fiber of my being, but I learned everything I ever did for her was really for myself. Why was I with her in the first place? It was to make myself feel better about my own incompetence and lack of ambition or accomplishment. I told my self that I must be cool because I had a “lover”. I remember being taught by one of my mentors that “A loser with a lover is still a loser. He’s just a loser with a girl.” His words left a lasting impression on my mind, and I had that all too personal “aha!” Little did I know, I used her as a mirror to admire the hideous beast that took her. I was overprotective, not because she was someone I wanted to protect, but because she was the ivory gold I craved. My greed kept her a prisoner of my own selfish desires. Anytime she even doubted our love, I would act in a manner I look back on with disgust. I would tell her I was ill, and to leave me would cause me to die of heartbreak. I mattered to her, but she never did to me.
“I was… your embrace.” I had this false illusion fixed in my mind that told me she and I were a universe of all the things beautiful in our lives. Every cosmic supernova were bursts of passion in our hearts, which carried on creating new worlds for us to explore. We were the universe billions of years from now when Andromeda and the Milky Way collide to form what we believe to be the most beautiful display of cosmic wonder to ever be. Truthfully, we were underwhelming in the abundance of galaxies that collide every day. Nothing was special about how we embraced one another. Nothing was grounded in truth. Rather, we happened to end up in each other’s way as nothing more than a fleeting memory, which faded after years of false”I love you”s
“Even now… my Angel of Music” builds off the way she used to sing to me. I remember she was mediocre at best, but I admired her determination. Now, those notes mean nothing more to me than a terrifying melody of the darkest times of my life. I feel much music has been ruined for me as a result of how she used to sing them. I’ll never be able to listen to Elvis again without thinking of how many times she insisted on singing his beats.
Who is Death? That would be me. I took her from myself as a plea of mercy from my mind to my heart. Looking back, my only regret was I didn’t do it sooner.