I cleaned my refrigerator the other day. It was well-needed, and now it looks wonderful! Already, you, the reader, probably believe this to be a joke of an article: an insignificance. That, however, is not the case.
There was a thin layer of jelly coating the inside of my fridge. With each push of the cloth against the residue, the memory of how it got there came flooding into my mind.
During that time, I was “talking” to a girl. In this instance, “talking” can be identified as me holding onto a thread that wove together both prosperity and destruction while she used me as an anchor to search for better people. I did, at the time, believe that I was getting somewhere with this “woman.” The quotations signify that, to me, a woman would not act in such twisted ways that belittled me.
A true woman, or even a true human being, does indeed make mistakes. That, I cannot refute, but a true mistake only comes once. A true mistake unveils itself, burrowing into the darkness within our hearts so that we may live through these mistakes, feeling still a resonant ache as we lead ourselves down similar paths. Her mistakes had woken up, and her mistakes had become the dimples in that smile that chained me.
She could not have had a heart to put me through the turmoil that befell me. She could not have had a brain to think that our friendship could continue unharmed. Without a heart and a brain, we are not people, we are monsters. My ignorance was a lantern guiding me through a perilous path of decay. The light went out. I thought to have gotten miles in the wrong direction, but time proved that I remained motionless. Perhaps I even ended up further from my destination than when I began. Weeks after our “bond” was broken, the light still flickered for me. Now it is dead, and I have no intention of finding oil.
The pulsating flame of hope blinded me for reasons outsiders cannot see. Time in private with this girl was something of fantasy, to me, at least. I felt a connection, but not every connection has great structure. To her, I was just a “drunken kiss.” To me, she was affection. To me, she was reward.
I do not believe her claims. Times too many did our lips touch without a drop of alcohol to guide them. Perhaps, then, true intoxication comes from hope, and if that were the case, why I had been poisoned. Friends upon friends had warned me not to get in too deep, and my heart sunk to depths that should have been unfathomed. I, however, kept swimming as my friends, even my own instincts, tugged at my heels. It was a race I could never win. Finally, one day came that I could swim no longer, and the realization of failure came in waves that rocked me into a coma of distrust. Finally free from the tentacles of her presence, I am awake as a new man. A fool, still, undoubtedly, but much less of one.
Still, I feel unsettled. She got away unscathed. She never felt sorry for my hours and my emotions that I wasted on here. I grow tired of hope, and I grow tired of effort. One could say that she was not a waste of my time at all. “Everything happens for a reason,” they all chirp in my ear. I learned plenty of life lessons, but what good has come of this? Were the small waves of happiness worth the tsunami of regret? This, I cannot answer.
Have no mistake, I would never go back. I have moved on and found happiness not in women, but within myself. That is the first step. I have a hard time letting go, and part of me still wants her to crawl back to me on all fours so I can look down upon her and unleash my “vengeance” like Jules in Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction. That would be funny.
Anyways, the fridge is all cleaned out, and I have no intention of spilling jelly in it this year.
