MONSTRESS

My anonymous friend and I were bored out of our wits one boring afternoon while hanging out at our hang-out. We were silent for about 10 minutes when my friend suddenly asked, "Weez, have you ever loved before? I mean, it seems like you never had a romantic type of relationship with anyone since that unfortunate day I met you 8 years ago…"

“Well, I actually fell in love with someone years ago,” I absent-mindedly blurted out.

My friend raised an eyebrow. “Oh yeah? Far-out!”

“Yeah!” I yelled.

Nostalgia struck like lightning from the corners of my dark gray matter. It’s amazing how I could still vividly recall those
memories… memories of my very-first-relationship-with-a-guy-slash-first-love.

I was young, and sad.
I often cried since I found it hard controlling my sadness. Well, I was crying when I first saw him. He was staring at
me, worried perhaps, but I didn’t care. All I cared about was my misery. I was
surprised when I found out he was still looking at me as my sobs subsided. I
gazed back at him. I noticed he had long wavy hair, and he was a little thin.
‘Twas strange because when I met his eyes, all I saw was love. He gave me a reassuring
smile. Unexpectedly, I smiled back. I knew that at that instant, I fell in love with him.

Pretty weird huh? How could I have known it was love? I was
young, naïve, and lonely. You can say that I didn’t even know what love was
then. But that’s exactly how I knew it was love - because love needs no
explanation, logic, or whatsoever. How could you explain an emotion as strong as love in the first place?

Anyhow, we became lovers. He was the only guy
who could ease my sorrow. He’d simply sit with me, and I’d feel a lot better. On
really sad days he would caress my hair or hold my hand and that would be
enough to comfort me. When crying was inevitable, he’d get his guitar and sing for
me. And yeah, I remember he even composed me a song - and I can still sing the
first two lines:

Riza Krishna, please don’t cry
Everything’s gonna be alright.

Indeed, that song made me feel alright. His music was my
valium. He was my valium.

Our love grew exponentially with time. And so I got to know more
about him. I discovered that he was a smoker. He smoked a lot - yet he
discouraged me from smoking. So I promised him that I’d never smoke. In return
he promised me he’d stop smoking. Years later he did keep his promise, but I broke
mine. Well, that’s another story.

Terms of endearment - silly but when you’re in a relationship, it’s automatic
right? I called him “Dope Roupe”. I made it up after I learned that he was
a dope addict in the past. He called me “Baby” – so freakin’ cliché. But that was what he
wanted to call me so I didn’t mind.

I remember how he loved to make me laugh, how we’d joke
around, how he’d carry me on his back, or how he’d tell me strange and funny stories. I
remember how I enjoyed hugging and kissing him. He was sweet – that was what he was.
Those days seemed to be the happiest in
my life.

I loved his company so much that I always looked forward to
our time together. There was even a time when I’d visit his school just to hang
out with him, despite my being introvert. He introduced me to some of the
students there, and that was how I sort-of “came out of my shell” and learned
to commune with other people.

He was also my very first philosophy guru. His wisdom influenced much of what I believe in today. He seemed
to know and understand a lot of things, that’s why I thought he was the
greatest guy on earth.

However, the only constant thing in life hit me dramatically - change. I started to discover new things; new people and they fascinated
me more than his company. ‘Twas like he was gradually mutating into something really
boring. Maybe I just grew tired of him. And then I realized that he
wasn’t actually that great after all. Soon I kinda ignored him, yet he
continued treating me the same way as before, and I wasn’t comfortable with that
anymore.

Parallel to the phases of microbial growth, the exponential
growth of our love had reached its stationary phase, the phase when love
stopped growing – a sudden dead, horizontal line in the graph of love vs time. I felt that he was becoming very overprotective of me and I hated it. A hurdle
to my freedom and happiness, I thought he was. He said I’ve changed a lot, and that
he simply couldn’t dig what was happening with me. Thus, I became awfully stubborn
while he kept on trying to change me. I thought he had the narrowest mind on
earth. And so our constant misunderstandings ended our sweet and romantic relationship.

My sudden recollection of the past sent a twinge in my heart. Our
love story. How could our love vanish just like that?

Nah-ah. I still love him - very much. First love never dies, right? First love NEVER dies. No
matter what happened or what will happen, I will always love him. Honestly, I
miss our sweet, romantic relationship. I actually pray that someday we’d be that close again.

“Ouch!” I snapped. Wincing,
I rubbed my arm. “Hey, what’s that pinch for?”

“Oh great, you’re back. You’ve drifted to your own little
alien world again,” my friend complained. "I was aking you about that guy you’re claiming to have fallen in love with."

"What about him?" I asked.

My friend looked at me in the eye and demanded, "Who was he?”

His face blurred in my mind. I was crying when we first met.

“My DAD,” I replied.

—————————————
posted June 2005, Father’s Day.

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