Hearts Shouldn't Burst

When I was young,
and when I say young, I mean thirteen,
I wanted a fairytale romance.
Soul mates, love at first sight.
I wanted that.
I wanted breathless wonder that you
- in your perfection -
would ever deign to look my way.
Ground falling away beneath my feet, but
your arms there to catch me
and keep me.
I wanted electric surges in our fingertips.
Perfect symmetry.
Chemistry - even now, I know nothing about chemistry,
it involves numbers and I'm bad at those - but I wanted it.
Longed for it with all the fervour of my youth.
And then
you
happened.

We had no symmetry.
I was small, and round, and soft.
You were tall, that kind of misshapen angular that boys are
when they're not quite finished yet.
You were smooth, though,
and that should have been a warning sign.
What kind of thirteen year old is smooth?
But I wanted you to be perfect,
and so I built you up in my mind until you were God
and I worshipped blindly at the altar you had built for me.
Didn't see the shackles you wrapped around my limbs.

After you, after a year of desperately
wanting hoping longing believing
that this was my fairytale,
I was saved - sort of.
I still saw you every day.
You, in your godliness, saw everything.
And one and a half years later, I still
knotted a belt around my throat and tried
to choke your life out of me.

Years later, I'm older.
Maybe wiser.
Although I still can't quite figure out my life,
still can't quite stop myself
from caressing the rope, the pills, the blade, the memory of you.
But I am stronger. I loved again,
even if it didn't last
he didn't want my worship.
And now, I know.
Fairytales are just disguised tragedies.
Like the arsenic in the icing sugar.
I don't want any of what you were to me anymore.
And if my little sister ever asks me what love is,
I'll tell her:

It's quiet nights in, where you don't really talk
and you're reading a book, and they're watching that show you hate
and you've never been so happy to be bored.
It's knowing they're useless without their morning coffee,
and letting them drink it before you try to plan the day ahead,
because hey, you get snappy late at night.
Love is them being able to tell that story from when you were five.
It's giggling when you kiss
and collapsing into laughter when you sleep together and one of you knees the other in the face.
And always resolving disputes.
Love is something that must never change you,
it only complements what's there.
Love is not fireworks,
it's candlelight during a power outage.
Love - the love I want - is not violent
It's not Prince Charming
it's not breathless.
Love breathes.
And as for hearts?
Well.
I can tell you right now, hon,
if your heart feels like it's about to burst out of your chest,
you've got a serious problem.