Sometimes I like to think that things happen because they are meant to. And other times I'm quite convinced the universe just wants to watch me burn. And maybe it does. Who am I to judge?
You see, it gives me questions. Fitting my life around them to make me ask, making sure that I have the opportunity to in the first place, really, because they need to be asked. And on those rare occasions, It gives me a moment in which I must be the one who can answer them.
Life has given me many, each unique, each just as powerful as the last. Each as able to grab you by the throat and pull you in. And I keep them all hidden away in a box under my bed. It's made to look like a book, with a glass of wine on the cover. Mainly because my questions outgrew the shoebox. An ever expanding collection of 'what if' that will one day overflow.
What if the one that got away, came back?
It sounds like it would be a dream come true. Like it would be the storybook ending to your fairytale. Cue the kiss and the curtains closing, this is The End people.
But such simple questions often come in pairs. Maybe because the words are lonely; and they find comfort by expanding upon themselves.
What if the one that got away, came back? And what if he was happy, loving someone else?
I don't get angry at the questions for being there, or at myself for not knowing the answers. Abstractly, I think they are beautiful. Even though they hurt with the asking. Even though I wish to be angry at life for making me ask them in the first place.
I want to make a paper fortune teller again, like I did when I was a girl, and see if it'll give me the answers I'm looking for. Because this is a tale of last chances. A requiem for a word.
It's bittersweet to look at, searching in those hidden places of your mind for why you treasured it in the first place, and falling back in love with those memories again, even though you know you cannot have them back. Even though you know they are just memories.
Because wouldn't it be lovely to go back in time? Wouldn't it be lovely to hold your hand again, and hear our laughter once more as real.
Wouldn't it be lovely if our 'what if' had a chance?
You are an image to me now. A photograph of a moment that has shaped itself into letters. A novel in a word, that I will carry forever.
It is a simple word, and yet complex in it's meaning. If you break it down, letter by letter, it is just a sequence. But if you look at it as a whole, it is powerful. Sentences and paragraphs of meaning, just to explain one word.
And yet when I see it, and I see you. A stringing together of words that spiral off onto everything you touch, leaving letters in your wake for me to shape into something else. Smudges of meaning for me to interpret.
And they are beautiful. Even with the sadness they leave in me with your influence.
Because you are beautiful. And you are just a word. A single, glorious word, that I will hold in my heart. Until I don't need the words anymore to remember you.