There was a time when I heard a song whose words never resonated with me until now. I was in love, or so I believed. There were three people entwined in this dance: the man I wished him to be, the man he truly was, and me. I surrendered to the first with all that I was, and all that I had. I loved him with every heartbeat, every breath, every thought. I was so afraid to lose him that I clung to him with a desperation that bordered on suffocation. I tried to love him harder each time, hoping he would be so filled with me that the thought of leaving would never sprung to his mind. I became one of those cringy booktok characters, the kind that makes you want to tear the inked pages apart and perhaps even your own hair. What I failed to realize was that, in my attempt to keep him by my side, I was the one losing myself. Each embrace drew me closer to asphyxiation and pushed him further away. I never understood the game called love where the first to fall loses; i never wished to play it anyway, knowing I’d always be the one left to piece together the fragments of my broken heart. Then i was disarmed by a smile, and suddenly everything made perfect sense; Adam's consumption of the forbidden apple for Eve, as did Orpheus's descent from purgatory to the underworld to reclaim Eurydice, and Romeo and Juliet's surrendering of their lives to be eternally together. I would have made a thousand and one sacrifices for him to stay, but in the end, I gave him a thousand and one reasons to go. No one taught me how to love people without planting my soul so deeply in them that they end up carrying pieces of it when they're gone. And you know what? With all the broken pieces and patches barely holding me together, i don’t even mind. Because, as the song’s lyrics go: "He hit me and it felt like a kiss."
