Extinguished, Unrequited

He wrapped his hand around my waist. The moon to our left got foggier and foggier as my eyes fixated more and more onto his pretty, down-turned ones. Time stopped for a moment.

I was hesitant; the man I was so in love with was letting go of the one person he claimed to still love despite all the distance and the misunderstandings. I was hesitant; I was fighting every neuron in my body to not move closer to him, to wrap my arms around his shoulders, and cup his stupid face and kiss his cheek.

But it happened. Our faces fit like a puzzle, a beautifully flawed puzzle. How can my nose fit in with someone else’s so perfectly? How could we know just how much to tilt our heads, just how much to lean in to be affectionate? Kisses have never felt as passionate with anyone else – none so loving, none so sensual as his. My heart ached, and I tried my best to not convey how I felt. I’m supposed to be the mature older one, aren’t I?

He looked tortured but also slightly relieved, incomparable with any metaphor I could come up with.

I didn’t have it in me to kiss him again. I was too hurt to be romantic. Just when I’d finally started to heal, just when I was starting to believe in love – being adorable with each other, annoying each other to an infinite extent, sending each other memos of love with kittens and hearts all over, holding hands and hugging him while he tries to walk. I was just starting to believe in love with all its corniness.

There’s no way the universe expects me to believe again.

All I’d thought I’d experience with this boy just shattered into a million pieces, each impaling me just enough to feel diffused pain all over – all this while I tried best to play poker. My chest hurts, specially when you let so many people in, just to let them go again. All the love I poured into whatever I’d had with this boy, all the warmth I knew I wouldn’t experience the next morning. All the dreams I’d have of him loving me again after I’d broken up with him. All the marination in unrequited love that I’ll have to do with none but myself. All the painfully free time I’d have to myself devoid of my dearest. All the...

And we parted.