Bitter Sixteen

This is me.

Backing up myself with nothing but love.



And there are the many various forces around me that are working against me, telling me otherwise.

Even a chat with the man's good friend tells me the unthinkable: "Maybe he's really not worth it."

I wonder how long before the triangle topples. Or if it will ever topple.


The last this happened to me was about 12 years ago.

I was 15, going on 16. Fell in love with a bad boy. Real bad boy, who fought in school, got expelled, and yet I loved him.

Too young to know what love is?

Perhaps. But it was almost the same kind of feeling. The feeling where I thought I was the only one who saw good in him, and thought he was a good soul deep within that needed help. Again, I thought I could be his angel.

It was pretty much the same story. Troubled by a broken family, mouthed with a vulgar tongue, he cried to me on rare occasions too. Touched by the faith he had in me, how could I not love him?

He left school, got into a new one - and just disappeared from my life.

Just like that. No calls, no messages, no replies.

I was dumped just like that.

I was left on my own, struggling to know what had happened, when nothing had seemed to have happened. Struggling to prepare for my big 'O's.

Like how I am feeling now, I couldn't figure out what I had done wrong. Hadn't I been there for him? Hadn't I stood by him? Hadn't I shown him enough love, despite all the trouble he was going through?

Just like how I am feeling now, I cried myself to sleep every single night. With Guns 'N Roses playing "Don't Cry" in the background, I kept telling myself not to cry. I've heard that song enough that it still rings a sad bell in me everytime I play it now.

I became a recluse. I went straight home everyday after school, and hung out at the neighborhood basketball court, playing with the boys everyday.

There was a boy then, who played with me everyday, who reminded me a lot of him. Perhaps that was why I went back to the court everyday. Another neighborhood boy, another troubled soul. Nothing happened - there was no feeling of love.

For six months, I cried to myself.

It took me more than a year to really recover. To really recover would have meant being able to talk about him, and not being emotionally shaken everytime his name was mentioned.

Thinking back, I still don't know why he left. We haven't spoken since, but he's asked about me. Maybe he left because he didn't know how to deal with me - we both came from reputable schools, but he was expelled and had to settle for a neighborhood one. I wouldn't have cared. Why wouldn't he talk to me? Why just leave like that?

I found out that in the six months after he left and that I had been crying, he had gotten himself a new girl in his new school. The news totally killed me.

I cried a little bit more, then I stopped.

I decided then he was a jerk, who wasn't worth any part of me.


Of course, that is just puppy love, I suppose.

But the effect on me was real. It was real enough to make me remember how painful it was for me.

I had tucked this episode of my life safely somewhere in a corner of my memory. I have not been thinking about it nor about him. Neither have I wished things were different. I don't know where he is now, or what he is doing, and it's fine by me.

I don't feel anger. I don't feel regret. I just thought a stupid past should remain as it is - a stupid past to be put away for the rest of my life.

I didn't want to dig it up again - but what is happening to me now, has inevitably uncovered the soil.

The similarity of it all, my stupidity, is making me remember all the unhappy childhood days.


Why?

Why do I always fall in love with troubled boys?

Why do I always fall so deep, I can't pull myself out?

Why do they cry to me and then leave me?

Why make me feel like I can be your angel?

Why am I always being cast away after giving my all? Isn't my loving good enough? Should I then be a whiny bitch from now on?


Don't tell me that just like the past, I'll soon get over it.

The situation is the same, but the feeling is definitely different.

When you actually felt the love, when you actually felt being one together, when you actually saw the future, when you actually were ready to give it all at my age, the feeling is definitely different.

When you actually experience a true great love, the feeling is definitely different.


You said you were afraid of getting hurt again, after a bad experience in your teenage years, something which you had never even told me about. It surprised, and puzzled me.

How could you possibly ever get hurt again? By me?

I should've been the one to say that to you.


You can now imagine the pain I'm living through right now.

Not one, but two heartbreaks.

I'm losing my faith in myself. In my ability to love.