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There once was a man.

He fell in love with a beauty that shone astonishingly. A breeze through an autumn woods, a shooting star scouring memories in a dark sky.

He fell in love with her smile and how she tried to hide it. He fell in love with her body and marvelled at the swirls in the universe that she left behind her. He fell in love with her simple love. Durable and honest, sweet and persistent. He fell in love with a woman and a dream.

There was once a man.

He became complacent. She stopped wearing make up and he stopped kissing her goodnight. He suffered and dragged her down with him. He never told her how much he needed her, letting her believe he didn’t love her. He pushed her away because she represented all that his demons screamed his unworthiness of.

So she left. And he never told her of how he cried to himself, lonely night after lonely night. He was too proud and his wounds were seeking far too much of the spotlight. He let her go to spite himself.

There was once a man.

And then there was a woman. Free from his long-worn shackles. A woman who found herself appreciated by those not lured by his darkness. A woman who blossomed and sparked and left kingdoms in her newfound freedom. She was a woman escaped. A woman who found freedom in the contrast to his own nihilistic escapism.

She was adored. Yet he never told her how his adoration would outshine the most exciting of cataclysmic explosions of opportunity, soaring higher than any earthly love story. He hid in his hole of pity and watched her shadow lengthen against the sunset, hating himself.

There was once a man.

Then there was a regret. It tore canyons through his soul and left craters that could never be filled. Gaping holes spotted his heart, such that he would lay at night listening to the boom of his emptiness. Echos of his horrendous choices tormented his eyes.

He watched her go to bed and waited until she was asleep. He watched her write him notes that filled his heart with longing and joy. And he watched him push them away because she could never understand his pain.

There was once a man.

And then there was her. Smiling with another. Doing the very things he wished he’d done with her and had no excuse to have not done. She swooned and swirled in the rainbow of new love. The new and the unknown.

She shone with beauty. She gleamed with a glow so enticing, so utterly wonderful and beautifully pretty that his world flooded. Waves swirled her smiling face. Tsunamis tore through his future and his hope burned with such a fire that it destroyed himself. And she smiled.

There was once a man.

Then there was a boy. Such innocent revelation had sent spires of guilt to his core. He wandered, lost without her softness. He ripped decency from his bones and screamed at the wind. He slew long-battled insecurities in the name of his too-late acknowledged love. Respect and honour poured from self-inflicted wounds meant to show the depth of his apology.

Rubbing blood in his hands, he screamed a regret of such the universe had never heard and time stopped still. The stars inhaled. He fell to his knees and watched his world disappear. He tumbled away from her while another star ignited her beauty in his wake. Nothing. He watched dreams and hopes and stories long dreamed of fade to black. He roared with an ethereal wound of regret at the emptiness with his last breath. And she smiled.

There was once a man.

And then there was less of the world. There would never be that quiet, assuring love again. There would never be the conversations only possible between them that flurried down branches of life, like the map was theirs alone to explore. There would never be the tender, vulnerable moments of lust and love entwining galaxies in time. The world sagged from the loss of such an innocent and forgotten story.

Never again would she be adored in all the ways he could never show her.

There was once a man.

And then there was another man.

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