The Missing Piece of My Soul

Author’s Note: Thanks to my writers group that I’ve been a member of for quite some time now, I’ve been forced to write things that are completely out of my normal style of writing.  It’s good to gain this sort of experience as a writer, because in the end it’ll only serve to make you better at your craft.  In this particular piece, I tried to bring out the absolute torment that one feels when they love someone that they’ll never have.

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It’s dark.  It’s always dark now.  The sun comes up, makes its lonely journey from one side of our world to the other, and then disappears once again until it repeats the whole process all over again the following day.  It’s been like this since time began, but only now do I understand the emptiness of such an existence.

I didn’t used to be like this.  I thought I was happy…fulfilled even, but I was only deluding myself.  Sometimes I wish I could go back to living in such blissful ignorance, but alas, those days are over for me.  They have been since I first encountered the part of my soul that’s been missing for all these years.  The day I met her was both a blessing and a curse, for never could I have imagined that one of such flawless beauty existed, and yet from the very first moment I laid eyes on her my soul has been in a perpetual state of despair…for she belongs to another.

The heart can be a cruel and jealous creature, for I hate this man as much as I envy him, and yet I can’t hate him, for his slight against me was never purposeful.  In fact, he knew nothing more of my existence than I knew of hers before that first, unforgettable encounter, and yet a jealousy rages within me that I struggle to control.

“If I can’t have her, then no man shall!” my jealous soul calls out, and yet I could never deny her even one brief moment of happiness, for to my knowledge at least, she is happy…and so I remain silent.  Not that I could ever truly believe that she could desire someone like me, but the heart cares not for such petty insecurities.  The heart wants what it wants, and it’ll hear no arguments to the contrary.

So…I wait.  I wait, and I pretend that my soul doesn’t cry out in pain each and every time I see her.  It’s difficult to maintain such a facade, but such is life.  I suppose all that’s left for me is to accept things as they are.  To be satisfied with seeing her eyes light up when she smiles, or to bask in the gentle softness of her voice.  Her mere presence radiates a warmth and a joy that’s almost unbearable for someone who sees her as the completion of his very soul, and yet is so cruelly restrained from expressing those feelings.

We don’t always get what we want, nor can we force someone to love us.  All we can do is to suffer through the emptiness, and to hope that perhaps someday…no, I dare not hope for such things.  It’s a fool’s endeavor at best to hope in such a way.  Perhaps in the next life we’ll find one another, for only then will the longing in my heart and the emptiness of my soul finally be put to rest.