I Think I'll Always Love Him. You Can Argue, Like Spring And Summer, The Seasons Are Bound To Change.

You were the song I used to listen to on repeat, knew every beat by heart. I felt every high and low, every key and note, every word and tune and I could tell when you'd end and begin.

Soon, I started getting happy during certain parts, excited even. It was all so good that you'd make me smile just humming you to myself, you'd make me happy playing on repeat in my head.

You were the song I knew I loved, the moment I heard you, and you were the song I knew was close to heart, that I played it for that one special person I spoke to all day and night.

Then one day, he left, and I couldn't hear you the same anymore. I knew it was going to be bad so I stopped listening to you, because I didn't want to associate those feelings with you but that's exactly what happened...

You were always on my playlist and I didn't mind listening to you when you came on the radio every now and then by accident. The sweet memories would last for three and a half minutes before vanishing the same way they'd appeared.

And that's the thing, I wouldn't deliberately play you on my own, that would be too painful and knowing the feelings attached to you, I couldn't possibly punish myself in such a cruel way.

Soon, words that were once meant for happiness, turned sour and I didn't want to dissect the meaning of you other than what I'd already interpreted in my head before.

Now, I hear you once in awhile and maybe it doesn't hurt anymore but it still doesn't feel the same as it did before...

You're the song I once loved, was intoxicated with, knew by heart and you will be the song I'll never listen to again by choice...

I'll never choose you again...

© Raina Rose.

I tried getting you off my thoughts, out of my head and burned all that's left with sage. It was supposed to be refreshing, it felt like murder. I was supposed to be clean again, I had blood all over me. It was supposed to be soothing, I've never felt my heart rip apart this way. It was pain and agony. It should have been white but all I saw was red. Was it anger, love or hatred? I stood there frozen with blood all over the floor, memories dying one after another. I'd given you up in exchange for a life I'd be living dead...

© Raina Rose.

My dark places and quiet nights are for no one, things I am and the scars I wear aren't stories to be told or shared...

© Raina Rose.

When you've gone through all sorts of alcohol you could possibly consume, when you've danced to every song on repeat a million times, when the walls start to close in on you, when you've kissed twenty different girls and still feel like shit, call me. Call me so I can bring you back home. My love, every journey has an end and even if you've set course for the wrong ones, come back home. Here, we love, we forgive, we fight and maybe drive each other crazy, but here, there'll always be love. I'll always love you despite everything you've done, despite every reason you've given me to fall out of love with you, to hate you. Come back home, it's been far too long. Come back home because my heart breaks a little everytime I see you with someone new. It breaks because you're looking for a remedy you already have. Just come back home, and we'll make this right again...

© Raina Rose.

The Black Mustang

Something familiar caught my eyes across the junction, and how I wish I didn't remember. It’s such an odd thing because you’d think spending time trying to forget it and having done a decent job at not remembering, would amount to your inability to recall a certain past. However, that was very much untrue today.

The shiny black Mustang. There it was, after all these years. I didn’t have to check the license plate to know it was yours, but I knew it was. Maybe I expected it to look a little older, more broken and faded like me, but it looked almost as good as the day you first pulled up into that parking lot, the day I knew you’d be the death of me. One little, visible scratch on the bonnet and you’d spend hours buffing it out. Yes, a little exaggeration there, but maybe those are the little things I missed about you most when you were gone. The way you frowned when you were upset, or the way you kept pushing your glasses back up your nose, the way you wore your watch a little loosely, and the way your hand always found mine to rest upon even while driving.

This could only mean one thing, that you were finally home. And that implied another thing altogether, that I didn’t exist in your thoughts anymore.

I found myself walking closer to the Mustang, and the closer I got, the more I remembered. This wasn’t just a car to us, it was a home on many days we didn’t have a place to go. We’d spend hours camping out with food and movies, sometimes with coffee and books. I remember the way your car always smelled like the pages of a book well-loved and used, the ones with many lines of bends on its spine, the ones with plenty of dog-ear pages that we never quite went back to finish up, and the ones that were always comforting and maybe a little tragic. After all, we remember pain better than happiness.

On good days, we spoke about anything under the sun and found solace in the simplest yet abstract ideas. It felt as though we were unbound, vast yet small, and inadequate in comparison to a world we knew so little about. On bad days, we had songs to fill the deafening silence and drove for miles in search of a destination that never quite came. Words could never fill the void quite the way your music did.

This car was the birthplace of our dreams and in the end, the very death of it too. How I wish I’d taken the usual way back home today. But today, I felt adrift, out of place, and heavy-hearted. I felt strange and I couldn’t quite put a finger on it, but I saw it all staring back at me in the reflection of the very car I loved as much as you. Because its appearance each day meant you were here and that you were gonna take me home, it meant we were gonna laugh till our jaws hurt a little, that we were gonna share a huge cup of coffee and have endless conversations. It meant that you were finally with me and that made each day worth surviving. And its absence left me just as devastated as yours did. I waited many days hoping for the familiar squeal of your tires that never quite came, I kept faith that only faded each day I was alone again.

It felt peaceful remembering you and everything about us, but it shattered me a little more. It felt like the path I was walking on had given way and I fell into the depths of an abyss, traveling in complete darkness and at the mercy of your saving, all over again.

Maybe I wanted to be lost and trapped and hurt and bled. Maybe I’d hoped you’d walk this way right now, in this very instant, and see me standing right next to the thing we once cherished. It could always go south but why did I enjoy this pain you kept bringing down upon me? It was as though I wanted to be wounded, like it didn’t matter even if I was hurt. I wanted to know what you’d choose; to embrace or ignore, to love or let go...

I guess the devil finally came out to play and in that moment I saw my deepest desire; I wanted to see you one more time, even if that encounter was bound to hurt me. Somewhere between remembering and thinking about all these things, my legs started to give way and I had to sit on the curb. Looking a little homeless and a lot broken, I knew I had to go.

As much as I craved your presence, the familiar scent of your cologne and aftershave, the tight embraces after a really long day, the way your lips curled as you whispered my name, the way you were my sanity and I was your reality, was all nothing but a dream now.

I still walk home the other way just to see if your car is still there, some days it’s gone and my heart aches a little and on other days, its presence gives me a strange sense of comfort.

Maybe it’s a twisted game, maybe the car isn’t yours, and maybe one day you’ll be there with it. All I know is that somewhere in the space between the walls of my heart and the empty lots of that parkade, you exist. Your very being fills this place with soul and maybe I need a little bit of that. And that little bit will give me every ounce of strength I need to carry on with life. Maybe one day it’ll all be gone and I will go back to my mundane routine, but I’d never stop looking for you, for us, in a crowd.

Maybe one day it’d hurt a lot less thinking about all this, and maybe one day it’d be just another black Mustang and on that day, I’ll know I made peace with a past I no longer held. Just maybe…

© Raina Rose.

Every morning I awaken in hopes of finding you under the covers, perhaps on the other side of the bed but our reality keeps us miles apart. I can't help but wonder what coffee tastes like on your lips, if you'd like them silky smooth, or bitterly burnt. Every inch of the day closes in on me, keeping you a constant in my thoughts. Every breeze carried by the wind has a hint of whisper, giggling your name. I long for a warmth I've never felt before, I ache for the touch of your skin, for familiarity, to truly know you. I wish I could come up behind you and hold you close whenever it felt like the world was too much for me, to savour the smell of your cologne that’ll keep me company while you were gone. I wish I could curl into your arms every single day and night, seeking refuge in a love never before seen, to lose myself in you, to lose myself with you. I like to imagine we belonged together in another lifetime, perhaps even one of the past, I like the way we think together, the way you complete my sentences and oftentimes, me. I think of nights spent drinking wine on the streets of Italy and Paris, getting lost in places between the allies and perhaps, in your eyes. Whenever I’m alone again, consumed by the thoughts of us, I hold myself together, praying no one else gets to touch and kiss you the way I do. The way I would...

I like our odds my love, I truly do. 

With love,

Rose

© Raina Rose.

It's a choice to be in love, as it is to be hurt by the ones we love. It's often those we love, that hurt us the most, because we've given them the ability to do so. We let them have special places in our hearts, prioritise them, their needs and wants, maybe get a little addicted to their company with more time and similar routines and let ourselves merge as though the process often completes us and makes us whole. Maybe it does, maybe it doesn't. But it is a choice, all of it is. And as much as it hurts, that's the beauty in love, to choose to be vulnerable with the ones we love, to give them the ability to see us whole, to see us naked, for all that we are, the flaws and beauty, saints and sinners. We choose to be in love knowing it might just wreck havoc before it's all over. We choose love over and over again, because despite the pain, there is beauty in vulnerability, there is beauty in being hurt by love, by the ones we love. This was our choice, to love and to hurt.

© Raina Rose.

It is true; the day he fells completely in love with you is the day you won't feel a damn thing for him. Why does it have to be this way? I trace the length of your skin and I used to know my way around you, this was a familiar route, but now, I get lost even when I'm home. I try and listen for the sound of your voice, your laughter, but all I do is tune out and lose you eventually. I knew your fragrance by heart, but I swear, it's fading everytime I think I know exactly what it is. I tried and tried and drank and drowned in bottles of bourbon hoping to taste you again. Cigarette buds everywhere, ashes carried by the breeze, landing over spaces once we used to live. Just the way our melody got lost in this rhythm of wind and time, even if I tried again, you'll never be mine...

© Raina Rose.

I used to listen to songs when chatting with friends, sometimes the songs are on repeat and then I start associating those songs with them. Everytime the songs come on, I naturally think about them and the conversations we've had. And then one day, he left. I listened to a variety of songs from plenty of my playlists that I started losing my mind when each one came on. I deleted them all, even the ones I've loved as much as him. It was better this way, because when the songs come on and he's not there, I don't know what to do with all the useless tunes, words and melodies that rise within me. What do I do with all the love and songs left inside of me that once used to belong to us?

© Raina Rose.

Dear stranger,

This was what I was afraid of. Like waves that kiss the shore every now and then, though memorable, they can’t stay. After every touch, they have to retreat back into the ocean. We never quite understand if the shore was too much for the waves or if the waves lost breath upon shore. Momentary conversations and all the seashells you left for me have decorated my night sky and are some of my most treasured memories. Relatable experiences and sincere visits made me want to step back into the waters again after a long time. You made me feel that maybe the waters weren’t as scary as they’ve been described to be, and they weren’t as cold as what they may seem. Though blue and deep, it was heartfelt. Blue, the color of calmness, trust, faith, and wisdom. Your depth made me wonder what secrets you held, every visit only made me more curious than the one before. With the reflection of the sky, endless possibilities and journeys, you had me breathless. 

I wish I knew it was the glistening reflection of Sun that blinded me but I wasn’t too sure, so I ventured. You held me firmly, no doubt, but I couldn’t help falling for you. It was your love, none like the ones before that had me stunned, it was your sincerity that made me understand you cared, it was your words that had me floored. But I’m not new to giving into attachments easily, I am a sucker for love. I prepared for the fall that would approach me one day. I braced myself as you took control. I was afraid you’d let go someday, then I’d have to fall back into the chain of unending torment, self-pity and sleepless nights all over again. I’d walked away from all that hurt for the longest time and I can’t believe after everything I’ve been through, I ended up here again. I’ve been holding myself back for the longest time and I didn’t know what it felt like to be loved like that, where I wasn’t wearing a mask and wasn’t lying about myself, where someone loved me for all that I was and saw everything in me for me, as me. 

But that’s the thing with our story, while you glimmered all day, darkness and tranquility sets in as the Sun left your side. Every dusk only reminded me of all the times someone let go of my hands after venturing far into the sea. All that love and kindness did put up a fight with the walls I’ve built around my heart, but I’m glad I didn’t back down, this wasn’t a war to win, but to choose between myself and my own downfall. Though you mean no harm, it is me that I fear most. Journey to the downward spiral never did end well, having known my own demons and torments, I wouldn’t risk slipping again. As much as your darkness scares me, it is my demons that I’m more afraid of. They live inside of me, they linger, waiting for the right moment to pounce, to gain control and to never let go. They used to drive me mad, reminding me of all my attempts at happiness, all my failures, all my sins, and mistakes. Perhaps it is their faces that I see in your reflection these days.  

I hope you can forgive me one day for not returning, for moving further away, for never again being the same. Those conversations we’ve had by the shoreline will always be my favorite, for my love, those were the days I truly let myself fall without realizing. And there’s always a high in falling, but when you fall, it’s inevitable that you crash. It’s a shame it had to come to an end, the way it always does.

© Raina Rose.