I HAVE KNOWN her for five years and I have loved her for three. Yet, within those empty moments of silence in the days that have gone by when I’d steal glances just to catch a small glimpse of her visage, I have lived and learned to be satisfied for a while. But it was also within those days that I grew even more fondly of her beauty, her grace, and her kindness. Surely enough, fondness turned to attraction and attraction grew to be love, soon accompanied with an aching pain, a sorrow that is longing for someone within an arm’s length.

A love so strong that I had memorized every detail about her – her favorite color, her laughter, the things that made her eyes light up, the little funny gestures she makes whenever she’s happy and yet despite it all, I stopped myself from getting too close. I held my feelings back and I chose safety over honesty.

After all, the friendship she and I fostered was all that mattered – that to be in the presence of her radiant beauty was enough and that it didn’t have to be me who made her smile, that to act selfishly would then put everything we’ve built to its ruins. I didn’t want to put her through such, as to get rid of everything we had would be crueler, because it was only for the sake of my selfish desires. So I kept it to myself, continued to play the role that I had to, convinced myself otherwise, and that it didn’t have to be me. For a while, I was whatever she needed me to be, until the day came that I couldn’t anymore.

“It was yearning so fatal that it burned me through the skin and bone leaving only ashes in my stead, helpless and futile much like Icarus when he flew too close to the sun.”

The thought of not being able to tell her the deep admiration I felt, all while lacking the strength to do so, crushed my very spirit; it was hypocrisy to the tee. Nevertheless, despite all those fears and the better judgment I had telling me that I would be fighting an uphill battle, a shot in the dark as other people would have it, that despite my best efforts, this endeavor could cost me everything, I have already made up my mind. I had to tell her everything. I had to tell her how much she meant to me, that I love her, that she was a solace brought about by the heavens, and that there wasn’t a single waking second when I didn’t think of her. I had to make it known to her that it physically pains me that I cannot be with her, that it causes me seething pain akin to a sharp object piercing my body, like a knife constantly being pushed and twisted against my chest.

So with that act of selfishness, I confessed under the shade of the night sky, with the stars serving as my only witness. Soon enough, it only left me hollow and full of regret. Her love for me as she stated exists solely in the companionship we fostered and despite wanting to reciprocate my feelings, she was simply unable. These words struck like wooden stakes to me. She was everything I ever wanted, everything I couldn’t bear to lose. Now, all we are are acquaintances with shared memories tethered together by the same group of people we call our friends and between was a deafening silence where closeness once inhabited. Now, she is merely just a memory; a visage that haunts me in every place and in every person I meet, like a ghost who has etched the outline of its own silhouette against the corridors of my mind, a shadow that has taken up a permanent home for herself there.

I was a person bereft of my own heart, for it was hers and hers alone to keep, like a flame pining for firewood before its warmth got snuffed by the wind. It was yearning so fatall that it burned me through the skin and bone leaving only ashes in my stead, helpless andfutile much like Icarus when he flew too close to the sun. The media throws this word loosely land candidly now, “to yearn is to earn.” An over romanticization of a pain so severe, so painstakingly intense, and so casually cruel that I wouldn’t even wish upon anyone to, because why would anyone ever want someone to be put on that kind of torment?

Yearning is painful. It is going back through your old photos, walking the same streets, going to the same mall, hoping and wishing to God that by luck, by chance, or by some other worldly power that you catch a glimpse of her. Yearning is craving for love that won’t ever come, it is the act of carving out your own rib cage, it is ripping your heart out placing it atop a silver platter and offering it to them and God knows how painful that act may be. To gamble your sanity and your heart to uncertainty, to leave it all to chance, to lower yourself and offer up every bit of your very being and soul, it is pathetic martyrdom adorned in gold and cloaked under the guise of love and devotion but it is rarely ever portrayed as one’s own devastation.

Sometimes, I wonder about the different outcomes. Had she said the word, I would have discarded everything in a heartbeat: my vices, routines and amusements. Had she said the word, I would have waited and in that time I would have made myself better, I would have proved myself worthy of her. I would have waited until she’s ready. I wish I could indulge in fickle fantasies such as this where I could play it all off and say that there is probably a universe out there where some other me is reaping the rewards of my sorrows, but no matter how sweet that distant revery maybe, alas, that simply isn’t the truth.

Man is given only one life to live, and I will live that life continuing to yearn for her presence until the day comes that I won’t any longer. Though I am still picking up the remains of my shattered heart while pondering to myself whether I am capable of loving another person as much as I loved her, or am I just as doomed to keep searching this desolate Earth for fragments of her warmth in someone else’s embrace? Trapped in the thought of believing that I’m not deserving of love altogether, for if so, may the Lord completely strip me of that feeling to prevent me from ever hurting, as these are all the musings I once had. Now, I find respite in knowing that my love wasn’t wasted just because it wasn’t reciprocated for it still lives within me just as much as it lives within her. It lives in those memories where shared laughter and smiles were present, where borrowed hoodies and shoulders to lean upon existed, where instances in which our hands embraced and our eyes met. I’m glad I fell in love with her when I did, for I wouldn’t have it any other way. If given the choice to do it all over again, I’d gladly fall every time wearing a smile on my face, not despite of the hurt that’s to come but more in spite of it, for Icarus too knew of the dangers that lie ahead yet he choose to fly nonetheless, smiling as he plummet down to the sea. I carry it all with me as I carry on.