The death of my inner romantic (long)

Bends over the body and checks for a pulse but he does not find one
Looks at his watch and announces, “Mark it down Sorean, Time of Death, July 6th, 5:55 PM”

In all reality, I’m not sure when my inner romantic died, but the above seemed to have a much more dramatic effect :). Sometime in the past eight years of my life my inner romantic was killed and the corpse left hidden deep in the recesses of my mind that I do not wander into.

I simply know now that I am not the same man that I entered into this city in. I’ve become jagged and rough, no more rosy coloured glasses to which I gleam passing images of optimism. My life experience has granted me corrective surgery; years of erosion has claimed what smooth and polished finish I once had.

A friend of mine for some reason had some of my previous work stored on her computer, stuff that I’ve long since lost myself because of a hard drive failure many years ago. It turns out it was all my earlier works of poetry. Stuff I had forgotten that I had written. Emotions and images about certain people that I crafted with my own hands. One particular piece twisted me in a way I did not know possible.

There’s something I want to tell you Les,
The first time I called you a witch, it was simply a jest.
But now I swear that it’s true,
Because I’ve been enchanted by you.

It’s easy for me to write poems that rhyme.
I can do it over and over, time after time.
But when it comes to writing of you,
There’s something that is hard to do.

I’ve fallen for you somewhere along the way,
There are so many things that I want to say.
I don’t know where and I don’t know when,
But given the chance I’d do it again.

Every time you’re near you make me smile,
And it’s not just for a little while.
It’s like you’ve cast a spell on my memory,
Every time I close my eyes, its you I see.

I realize that a million poems could not suffice,
Because you are too sweet, smart and nice.
You’re more beautiful than anyone I know,
The feelings I have for you are more than I show.

I wanted to tell you all this before,
but now I’m only here for four months more.
I wish that I had more time,
but I’m traveling a very thin line.

I don’t deserve someone like you,
But the next thing I say is true.
If you say you’ll be mine,
I could love you from now until the end of time.

This is the first anyone outside of me and the girl mentioned in the poem will ever read it. Those that went to high school with me will know who this girl is. I may have shared it with one other person in memory. But reading it again today, made me realize what I had lost (not the girl). Of course it didn’t happen because I wrote that shortly before moving to Calgary, she was going to live her life, I mine; But reading it today I remember crafting that with a fine precision to let her know how I truly felt at the time. I could so clearly articulate what I meant and what I felt. But now, I try to find the author of those words and he’s no where to be found.

Maybe I think that poem is better than it really is, but somehow I don’t think I could ever put together the way I feel about someone as perfectly as I did in that piece. People say that romance is long dead, at least I know mine died somewhere in the past eight years. I’m not mourning the loss of a potential relationship, I’m mourning the loss of my creative ability to craft words into emotions, I’m mourning the loss of a skill that I could have developed into something so much more, and I’m mourning the loss of the romantic that may never see any relationship the same way as when I was eighteen.

Even as I write this I feel the urge to slap myself and say, “stop being so emo”. I’m sure the middle ground is in there somewhere.

Go ahead and flame on. I’m going to find a way to resurrect that ability.

/end emo.

Semi-fitting track: John O’Callaghan feat. Sarah Howells – Find Yourself