I have loved and loved and loved, and I have lost.

I imagined our love would be different. Everything was different from the moment we met. It was instant, a single voice in the midst of many and I knew I would love this person. I never thought it would be perfect. The sins I had made in the past, I carried them for many years. This would be the same. I would carry his burdens and my own. It was what I deserved. That insecurity I held within myself for years, he saw all of it. The many walls and rooms I had buried my sorrows in, he went through each one individually, speaking on the ones he understood and asking about the ones he didn’t.

Then the mistake came.

I sobbed, burying my head into my blanket as the grief overwhelmed me. This was what I deserved, I reminded myself. In all the years I had spent breaking other hearts; I deserved to be broken myself. The weight of the room with my brother’s abuse. I deserved it all. Little perfect walking about placing judgment on others. I was now being judged.

He apologized remorsefully.

And yet the pain remained and created another room. Only this time, I refused to unlock it or acknowledge it. From time to time I would sit by the door, the echoes of my cries seeping from underneath. If I paid closer attention, I could almost feel the cold hands of sorrow prying from underneath, tendrils of grief peeking and beckoning me. But I remained still.

Time passed.

I wanted so badly to vanish into myself. But I remained steadfast in being there for him. I was fixated on the damage yet sought to heal another. He mourned for us with self-deprecation that I couldn’t relate to. I was hopeful. Had always been so desperate to be hopeful and loving and loved that I ignored every flaw. That I ignored how often he would quietly sink into one of the open rooms and lay there. I’d run through the halls searching for him, unaware that he had laid himself bare in the room beside my grief.

He was sorry.

For too many things, too many past events none of us could take back but he wished he could. “I’m sorry” became an echo in the halls. This was not what I wanted. I wanted a trying love. I never expected it to be perfect or beautiful, for the regret that bore deep into my soul would never allow love to be. But he…over time….became fearful.

That he would hurt me.

That there would be nothing but hurt.

That of all the love he wanted to offer, all he could give were….the shadows of a heart broken far too often….the grief of years tucked away into his veins….half of a man who wished and wished and wished….for someone like me.

I have loved, I have loved, I have loved, and I have lost.