First Love, The Second Time Around
By Iz Zakaria
You are here every day, you are here every night. I hear your voice through my phone, and everything fell into place. And whenever you are gone, you are never far from my mind. And once again, the cheesy, corny, overused sayings find their way back into my head.
I have fallen in love with you once, and it took everything I had to go through that heartbreak. And since that time, Carly Rae Jepsen released the best and the worst song ever in the history of mankind; Gossip Girl ended; the Candy Crush Saga obsession came and went; the Arab Spring started; many, many, many dictators have been ousted; Obama got re-elected; the iPhone 5 came out; I made new friends; I fell in love again; I graduated; I moved; I fell out of love again. Now here you are again, years later, offering your heart once again, undoing all the progress I have done in the years since you left.
You would think I’d know better, too. If it did not work the first time around, the rational part of my brain tells me, it will not work again. You play mind games, and I have always been far too happy to participate. You give more love than any man I have ever known, but when you take it all back, you do it quick, zero explanation. No evidence of our love left behind. All or nothing, that is how you’ve always done it, and you have not changed one bit. I still remember the heartbreak clearly. Screaming angry Taylor Swift songs in my car. Going all out and making twenty new friends in a day in an attempt to forget you. Cursing you, hating you, and wishing you a world of pain, before crashing down and crying. Hiding under my bed for comfort, trying to understand the loneliness. Forgetting how to breathe; feeling actual, physical pain from the heartbreak. Why would I ever go back there again?
What if the reason you keep coming back is because this, THIS is the love they talk about in movies, the romantic in me asked. Surely that is a thing. People fall in love, they fall apart, and they come back together as better people. Better people who could make it work, right? I take better care of myself now; I am not as reckless and unsuspecting as I once was. And you, surely, have learnt to love better. We are both grown adults now, better equipped to handle our kind of mad, passionate, out-of-this-world love. Maybe it does not even have to be insane and tumultuous anymore. We could have the suburban, comfortable, quiet kind of love this time around.
Can we? Can we not? I can’t make up my mind. I’ve wasted too much time plucking daisies, asking them whether you love me or you love me not. Without even realizing it, I have put aside the strong independent woman inside of me and fall weak at the knees every time you come around.
I hate feeling so confused.
So I beg of you, before any hearts get broken, before we get too tangled up again, walk away and take your heart with you. Please?