That Familiar Agony

...of being rejected.  Or at least your love's rejection.

I think somewhere I knew that it would happen.  That's why I held off from mentioning it, acting on it, even really acknowledging the attraction that would inevitably end in disappointment.  I guess I was lucky enough not to act on it.  To decline flippant invitations, that deep down I knew were not exuding true love, or genuine desire.  

It hurts as it always does.  It hurts the older I get, the more beat up I get.  

Friends' constant interference in these situations also hurt too.  But I guess it was my fault to be attracted to someone with admirers so determined that they'd attempt to push me out of the way to seize what they want.  When I was younger I'd make plans of vengeance.  When I was bolder, I would defend what I thought should be mine.

I'm old and done.

I say do what you wish.  And leave me alone.  There's no place for love in my house.  It left eons ago, before I could recall it's presence.  And in a sad way it makes sense.  If it didn't work then, there's no obvious reason why it would suddenly work now.

But still.  You want to stamp on your own heart sometimes.  You want to take it into your hands, a fistful of remorseful contempt.  You want to cry and wring your fingers around it and say How many times can you bring me here, alone and unwanted?  You want to demand an answer.  Why again and again and again?  What is left of you to smash, and crumble and be left to derisive ridicule?

And as every year, as every rolling crumbling year passes, your heart has no answer, because it will always want what it will never have, and it has been waiting for an eternity for your mind, lost and wondering, to realise that you've been tricked.

Oh, such a dirty trick.