The day my innocence slipped from my hands was not the day I fell in love; it was the day my love fell apart. The night I met him, my breath nearly whistled in the breeze of everyone else’s vigor. My voice felt as though silence was holding a gun to my throat, and if that voice of mine uttered a single syllable, silence would not hesitate to pull the trigger. Darkness resided in me and I sat in a lonesome place of my mind and observed the others chat aimlessly amongst themselves. As I looked down, as I often did, I thought about how and why I was in the place I was and how badly I wanted to say something, anything. Suddenly, a door opened and my eyes arose to the sight of a boy who looked as though he understood. His eyes met mine, and throughout the night, they tangoed back and forth. I soon found it was easier to look up in the world when I had someone to look to.
That evening, I got the pleasure of personally shaking hands with Hope himself. His grip was warm, with rosy fingertips and chewed down nails…it was ironic really, how my version of Hope has bad habits. I soon realized that our handshake had stopped time, and resuming it was probably the hardest thing I’ve ever done. Letting go of his hand was trying to rid myself of molasses. The feeling stained my heart and clogged my pores, causing me to break out with a major case of the "when will he call?"s and “maybe it was just me”s. As it turns out, this feeling was mutual.
Our first date did not consist of butterflies; it consisted of birds beating the walls of my stomach, tickling the insides of me with their feathers, causing me to giggle at things that weren't even funny. I smiled in silence and my eyes only looked down to spring back up with a flaming passion of “Maybe”. Loving him was easy; it came naturally, and it was something I felt honestly good at. It was something I did for a long time. Years went by and I felt the world greet me with a new sense of appreciation. The perfume of flowers was stronger, the sun was brighter, and I learned that grass was greener when it was tended to. You can’t control a drought, no matter what position you think you may hold on the world.
Our dinners never quite flourished the way they did before, and it became the same routine. I would often reach for his hands only to find them cold and bored. Instead of looking up, I looked to my thumbs for comfort. They twiddled around and sometimes I would try my hardest to think of something to say. I would lie and say that perhaps I would try something different on the menu; I typically got the same thing anyway. I watched my Hope gaze blankly out the window, searching for anything more interesting to look at than I. The width of the booth felt like an eternity, and it appeared as though the elephant in the room could be found easily on Google Maps.
The first time I heard him yell, it felt as though my spine cracked and I felt a burning sensation circulate throughout my entire body. Fear was running too quickly through my veins, colliding head first with my adrenaline, paralyzing my heart. My lungs filled rather slowly with self-doubt and I found myself drowning in a puddle full of “Why”. His tongue seemed as though he spent hours sharpening it every day, as though his stabs were well thought out. He found the weakest parts of me and took to them with vicious intentions. I thought back to the rhyme my mother used to tell me, about sticks and stones. His words fractured my ribs and caused burning tears of melancholy to flood my face. I lost Hope that evening, and I saw the world for the first time with a knowledgeable gaze. His eyes met mine, and throughout the night, they raged back and forth to the dreadful sound of “How did we get here?" I scrambled to find reason, but only discovered it was easier to look down in the world when you never truly know who's looking back at you.
