Tezave

               There’s a certain numbness that sets in with age. It’s unfortunate and we don’t often like to talk about it; but it does happen. It’s  a distancing from feeling things too keenly. As children, we’re still learning to connect with those emotions as we enjoy all the wonder of discovery. As adolescents and teens we fight to understand these feelings as we have our first encounters with love.

              
              There is such naiveté in those years, but such combustion in their hearts of the young as well. I find myself missing those times. Those times when it was socially acceptable to feel that deeply, to love that much. To make another person your everything. Staying up late just talking on the phone. Writing notes just because you’re thinking about that person. I thought all of that gone forever.

                And then I met you.

            
                I didn’t believe you at first. I thought there was some trick to it. Some game, some angle. I hadn’t realized that I’d become that jaded and cynical. But I had. I held you at arm’s length because I wasn’t sure I could believe in you. It was like finding out magic was real, but not being prepared to believe.

            
               And now that magic is gone. Maybe it couldn’t have lasted. I don’t know. I feel like I’ve squandered eternity. I try my best to rationalize as I feel like I’m suffocating. I can’t breathe because all I want to do is scream your name and hope that you’ll hear me in some distant echo and remember what kindled our fire in the first place.

           
              But I can’t go back, and I can’t move forward holding this shattered spirit. So I cast the pieces to the wind and hope that one might find you and bring a smile to your face. And I continue on, hoping that the gods grant me that fire once again.