Love Lost
The first time I loved her, she came on the breeze,
And brought with her caring and kindness and laughter.
Devotion flowed freely with unpracticed ease.
I still cling to these moments so many years after.
For those endless summers, we were one and not two:
With unending affection, our joy grew entwined.
We could not be parted. We were bonded like glue.
Our hands fit together like they were designed.
We could not know then that our time was bound,
And what we called love was just child's play.
We'd believed so fiercely in what we had found,
But in the end, life still called her away.
She was gone. I watched her go.
I could not contain her. Winds tend to blow.
***
The next time I loved her, she was the sun.
She reclaimed my life with her brilliant flare.
Without hesitation, we dissolved into one.
Once again whole - an inseparable pair.
She burned through the haze of my humdrum routine,
And showed me a new way that my life could be,
Where each breath I took was pure and pristine,
And the moments between were furnished with glee.
But a passionate love can exhaust and consume.
And the humdrum mundane still required attention.
Perhaps all along, we were a fragile bloom.
And day-to-day mishaps only fueled tension.
I had flown too close to her blinding ray.
And the sun must set to end the day.
***
The third time I loved her, she was the storm.
Her frenzied winds swept me up to a dizzying height.
We dissolved into each other, losing our form,
Though the ecstatic high was tinged with fright.
We leapt without looking, pretending we'd changed,
That our love was fated to last forever.
And this time we would not leave estranged.
We kept blind hope in this doomed endeavor.
Rather than joy, her eyes would flash green,
As she heard my stories and learned how I'd grown.
The first hints of something desperate and mean.
She could not forgive me for a life lived alone.
Her anger and envy unraveled our bond.
When she tried to react, I wouldn't respond.
***
The fourth time I loved her, she came in the dark.
Her passions and lightness had rotted and turned.
What was once filled with love was now cold and stark.
Still, she flooded my being until my lungs burned.
Her radiance shattered into the sharpest of shards,
Making a weapon from her corrupted creation.
Her life tumbled around us, a house of cards
She screamed her pain and my damnation.
I could have and should have done better myself,
And given her kindness and loving compassion.
Put my pride and righteousness away on a shelf,
And given her love as a life-saving ration.
Along with our spark, she faded away
And I did not see her again ‘til this day.
***
The last time I loved him, I was the void.
Arriving unnoticed as if cloaked in silence.
My heart was empty and my soul destroyed.
And only then could he see the depths of my violence.
"You were my life, you were my world.
My earth and my ocean and endlessly more."
As I spoke, I could feel my hands curled.
Before I could finish, he ran to the door.
But the knife was faster than his stride
Blood slid down to the knife's sharpest tip.
He looked forlorn as he laid down and died
And slip into the vast infinite.
Now I can see how far we fell
And it begins again, in my personal hell.
NYCMidnight Rhyming Story Challenge 2022
Round 1 Prompts: Horror | Infinite | Jealous
Result: 1st Place
