Maile Rapozo, “Fallen Flower”
Tell me, my dear, have you ever felt true love?
I mean, true love. Not fascination with an idol or a simple teenage crush, I mean the kind of love that makes you feel like your life is worth living because that one person is here with you, have you ever felt that?
It doesn’t need to be romantic, I’ve known people who claimed to have felt this for a family member or close friend. Of course, they were wrong, it wasn’t true love, but it was certainly close. They were only missing one small piece that binds everything together.
Sacrifice.
They were not willing to sacrifice for their love. They thought they were but when push came to shove, each and every one backed down to let the other person die. They offered money, and property, and resources I would refuse each time until finally, they told me they’d give even their own lives to save their beloved.
But when the telegraph was delivered, when the letter came in the mail, when the text was sent mere moments after they offered, each and every one backed down.
And thus they felt the pain of losing that which they knew they were not worthy of saving.
And you know, some try to move on, to find new lovers and start new families, but they never truly forget. It sits in the back of their minds like a maggot in a rotting corpse, feeding on their own guilt to grow fat and swollen, tormenting them every second of every day.
You would call me terrible if I ever said this to your face, wouldn’t you? You’d call me terrible and awful, you’d probably throw in a curse or two, telling me you wished I’d never entered your life.
But this is your fault, you know?
You introduced me to this “love.”
You taught me what it was like and how it felt. You taught me how to feel that burn in my chest and lead in my lungs, the kind you need to commit to something horrible. You berated me when I cried and praised me when I soaked my hands in the blood of those you told me weren’t deserving of what they had, I learned everything from you.
I listened and I obeyed and I cried and I killed all for you.
I took your words to heart even when I felt myself bleeding out on your bedroom floor, staining the wood an ugly brown that matched the color of your eyes when you stared at me with nothing more than contempt.
And then you pushed me.
Right off the edge, I fell like a loose boulder on the side of a mountain, the crack of my bones could be heard loud and clear.
It’d almost be funny how quickly I hit the ground if not for the fact that you couldn’t even be bothered to finish the job.
I survived, Mia, because I didn’t love you enough to sacrifice myself for you and you never saw me as anything more than defective.
I never felt true love for you no matter how hard I tried. I think something in me always knew what was between us just… wasn’t right. I devoted myself to you yet you only saw my failures, the ones who got away, the ones who could live in these falsehoods of romance, whispering sweet nothings to the people who should’ve died.
But I’ve fixed everything!
I fixed my body.
I fixed my mind.
I even fixed my heart so now it beats only for you yet again.
It took a bit of tweaking and I fear I’ve gone a bit blind in one eye, the fault of staring at your pictures like they were the sun and maybe just a bit of LSD, but now I am almost entirely sure what I feel is true love.
Thankfully though, by the time you read this, I’ll have perfected myself and you will bear witness to the shattered bits of my soul wound up into the most beautiful love you have ever seen.
I will perform the ultimate sacrifice, the ultimate declaration of my love for you. Maybe now you will believe me when I tell you I’m yours.
Do not struggle against the ropes, my dear, we both know you cannot undo these knots in the time you have. I’ve had years upon years and plenty of people on which to practice for you so the best thing you can do is try to control your own breathing.
I’m not foolish enough to poison the air, I’ve made that mistake at least twice before, but still, you’re in a basement, who knows what mold is growing in the walls.
But just you wait, Mia, I should be down soon.
I’ll come bearing a rose and some wine for us to share. It’s my special recipe, it tastes absolutely heavenly.
