Every now and then

It wasn't about your body being perfect. It wasn't about you being perfect. It was about that you had this...let me start again. It was about that when you weren't near that I would play you on repeat in my mind, intensely fixated on you, but when you were near, all I could see were the flaws that turned me off. Knowing those flaws intimately, I didn't care. The effect you had on me was too overpowering and addictive. You were worth more to me in that broken form than not at all.

first loves don't leave...I guess that's true.

Every now and then, I look you up and force myself to not send you a message, not to continue searching for you, not to continue to wonder about you. How I've failed!

Maybe the cycle of heartbreak is part of your attraction, a memory of you colored with devastation is your sex appeal, a tainted slaughter of affection is the cure, so now I engage in this affair of my mind flipping for an imagined love. No crushed kisses met with your re-emergence. For a few days, I can almost sense you, then it fades into the abyss and all normalizes.

Game Time

I was on my laptop. Home. Waiting for her.

I heard her come in. She had that pinkness still on her face, a sign of crying.

"Are you alright?"

"Umm...I was thinking on the drive home that I should do more to protect you."

"Wait. What?"

"You think I'm gonna give into you totally in this way you crave, and I'm not. Why am I gonna string you along, waste your time, waste your effort,"

I slam my laptop closed. "This again." Raising my voice. "You spend time alone, and you come back with this shit!"

"Then what are we doing?"

"Thinking logically and long-term?"

"Yes."

"Why decide now? Why think about it and discuss it now?"

"Because you want me invested in this, invested in you, and knowing the direction of my investment is what I need to continue here."

"Oh, now you're demanding things." I wave my hand, away with her request. I notice I'm standing.

"No!" She steps forward. "You wouldn't take a job without knowing the job requirements and responsibilities. Well, that's the sort of direction I need. You can plan and take on so many things because you don't need to calculate me into the equation, but I don't feel that way. I do enjoy thinking things through with you, turning to you for advice or insight, but for me to consider what you say, I need a direction on this investment. I need to know the value of what you say. I want to know if what you say is meant as a long-term consideration or short-term."

I cover my eyes and wipe my hands down my face. "Here you go with this crazy talk I can't decipher."

"Then you just answered my question. Your reaction right there colored the direction you are going towards. So I need to leave. I feel you're invested in this, but not in the same direction that I am."

"No. Stay." I calmly let out. "You want a consideration. This is my consideration: Let's talk about this and figure it out. Lay all our cards on the table, and figure this out."

Just like that. She wilts. Her defenses gone, and I say this with a bit of embarrassment, I slightly melt at how easily her will sheds. 

Going down

I fell
         ......
               .......
                       ................................
                                                       ...

in love. Not in you, exactly, but the deeper part of you that grows and changes and will one day become. I fell in love with the specks of you hidden within the spurts of vulnerability you showed. I fell deeper when you would put all your cards on the table. I swooned over your motivation to pursue what you wanted. That pushed me to do the same for myself. Even now, I'm ... at a loss. My want of you is deeper than you. It transcends because all these years and failed attempts later it hasn't waned. And I'm baffled by it. Why doesn't it disappear? Why does it haunt me? 

There are three options:
- it's real
- I'm in love with the concept of you more than you. Which doesn't make a difference! I see the difference in how I treat you. I don't hold up barriers with you because I have faith in you.
- I like this game.