There are a lot of things you wish for when it comes to him. One of them is a manual on how to stop liking him. There is never a written rule anywhere, or a guideline that tells you when it’s time to let go, to drop everything and walk away. Because you never know how long you should go on, and you never know how exactly to stop. One sided love always hurts, especially when it is yours that’s unrequited.

For years he has continued to fill your mind, your heart. You see his face in every almost person you meet, in strangers that you come across at the streets. You can’t help but to find the similarities in them, and those little details, be it parallels or differences, always put a smile on your smile, which become a reason for you to hate yourself later. But even so you still continue to do it. You still continue to look for the crinkles his eyes form when he smiles, the delicate doe eyes, so clear they seem to be able to penetrate your soul, that fresh scent his body emancipates which reminds you of the grassy soccer field back in your hometown.

He fills your mind, your heart even when you don’t want him to. You work hard to forget him, lose yourself in the rush of each day as you run to catch the bus and squeeze yourself in the train. You meet new people, discover new places, find new hobbies and learn new experiences. But as you lie in your bed staring into nothing in the darkness of the night, it is still his name that you call out. It is still his smile that you see and it is still him that you long for.

It is as if time has stopped for you right from the moment when you realized that it is him that your heart wants. The clock has stopped ticking for you and you are stuck right there in the same labyrinth where you found yourself in without being able to move on. The past is a magnet that always manages to pull you back no matter how far you’ve run. You cry and cry and ask for help and cry again but help is never sufficient and tears are never enough.

You waste your every wish on him, from the same digits lined up on your computer screen to shooting stars. You keep hoping and dreaming for the same thing despite knowing how stupid it is. You keep imagining him next to you, holding your hands when it is cold and making you tea when your day is rough. You imagine him carving his smiles that you love so much just for you, and your heart hurts because you know how silly it is but you still keep on making up scenes in your head.

You miss him like the stars miss the sun in morning skies, because although the stars never really left the sky in daylight the sun is too brilliant it outshines every other thing out there. And you can’t help thinking how awfully similar it is, because he radiates so much shine you are left in the corner with barely enough light for yourself.

You call him names and occasionally you run out of profanities to address him with. You put the blame on him for everything, and you allow yourself to be comforted by that because you think it’s all his fault anyway. Life wouldn’t be so hard if he never existed in your universe and a flower could have blossomed in your ice cold heart. You could have been happier, perhaps. Maybe even married to a nice man who treats you well, with a kid and another in tow.

Life gets hard more often than not. Workloads never seem to cease, things get expensive, your favourite snack bar is no longer business, friends facing bad breakups. When night falls sometimes you stop by at some stall on your way home. Get drunk, slur the very person who turned your life upside down and shout more profanities until someone threatens to call the police. And you tell them to go ahead and do so since it won’t make any difference because you’ve been living in hell anyway.

But you never stop trying. You return the smile from the cute guy in train, go on blind dates that your friends set up and call your mother every night because her voice always puts your heart at ease, because she will tell you that everything’s going to be okay and you will believe her words.

You try. You try so hard and cry some more, but when you see his favourite team playing or hear the songs he used to sing you still get reminded of him. You still associate your favourite songs to him and highlight your favourite lines in the book you’re currently reading thinking of him. At the end of the day you realize that you’re still stuck in the same infinite without an end and it is still him him him no matter how much effort you put in to erase him.

You hate him for being the one that you love and you hate yourself for falling in love. Because it’s obvious that the only thing resulted from falling is hurting. It will leave a scar that will hurt you for your entire life, and the scar will always stay there even when new skin has grown. Things will never be the same again so you scorn yourself even more for not being able to catch yourself when you fall before you could scrape your knees, or in this case, your heart.

So you make more wishes. You mutter the same wish as you close your eyes and flip your last coin into the fountain, hoping that someday when you look up at the sky and make out shapes from the clouds he can see the same thing you do, and that the wind can carry your whisper all the way into his ear. You’re wasting your wish again and you’re well aware of it, but you tell yourself that it’s okay because you can always try again.

There is never a day that passed by without you trying. And today is no difference. You’re trying again as well although you boarded the bus after reading a message from your best friend from high school about a reunion. You’re still trying despite knowing you will need to mend your wound on your own again today. You’re still trying because that’s the only thing that you can afford to do since time has stopped for you a long while ago and the magnet continues to pull you back into the labyrinth.

In fact you’re still trying when you step into the restaurant, packed with familiar faces that you once know and amongst them a face you know too well (you see that face in your dream every night).

You exhale a sigh.

You meet his gaze.

(He smiles at the sight of you because it’s a manner he learned as a kid.)

And you fall once again, deeper and harder than the last time.