Tag: mental-health

I think most people can relate to the experience of teenage heartbreak and a love that lingers long after last words are exchanged.

They aren’t just the one that got away.

They’re the one you’d light your life on fire for, travel across the globe in half a second at even the slightest chance of a second chance.

I lit my life on fire for different reasons, and I traveled across the globe for me, myself, and I.

Still, most of my life I’ve been haunted by a love that never fully bloomed, that left me weeping uncontrollably like a fool.

Because in my mind, he was perfect in every way.

Minds are funny that way.

Or at least, mine is.

The network executives of my mind play reruns of the happy times.

They romanticize every late-night chat, every stolen glance, every chicken dance. The brain freeze and drama free drive with his hand on my thigh.

The network blurs out the bad and censors the pain.

The first betrayal, second, and third are scrubbed from the record, the film stripped and burned until the viewer starts to wonder if those episodes were imagined.

But once the execs get canned, a harsh reality sets in:

What I’d clung to all these years, was nothing more than a fantasy.

The fantasy of him, of us.

Because I’m sure, to him, I was nothing more than a blip, a fleeting friendship, a minor attraction. Forgotten faster than it lasted.

I wrote the poem below when I decided enough was enough.

Because I think when it comes to love, real and lasting and mutual and beautiful love, the idea of it won’t hold a candle to its reality.

Renovation

I let the idea of you
overshadow the truth of you
for far too long.

Now, here I stand
reclaiming the corner of my mind
where you used to reside.

I ripped up the carpet,
painted the walls with the lyrics
from my favorite songs.

Unbarred the windows,
let in the light, felt the weight
of your presence disintegrate.

Now I breathe in the air,
fresh and new, as a garden
of hope within me blooms.

Heartfelt gratitude is extended to The Nemadji Review for publishing Renovation in their 14th edition.