You were my first love, I fell for you almost at first sight, and have loved you ever since. Even when our ardor cooled a bit, the others would always say about you "I'll never be able to compete with your first love, I know that." Sadly they were right, you were/are in my blood. Our relationship defines me, and has defined me for more years than I care to remember. When I lashed out in unexplained anger (which I did often), people who know me would just sigh and say "well he's in a an awful relationship with ____ (you), and give me far more leeway than I deserved. Defending the little honour you had left, almost got me pummeled senseless on more than one occasion. We almost (just almost) achieved the ultimate goal in any relationship twice, but we just could not get over some, real or imagined, hump. It was heartbreaking the first time. So much so that I even called the wolf that raised me, and blamed her for our relationship, telling her it was all her fault, that she should have raised me better than to know you were nothing less than a soul crusher. Then, I hung up on her, the wolf that raised me is who I blame for you, but at night when no one is around, I realize to myself that is mostly my fault for having such high expectations, not yours for failing to meet them. The second time you broke my heart, I walked out of my house, screamed my frustration loud enough for the entire neighborhood to hear, and broke a fairly large branch off of a poor, innocent tree. I suppose the tree was a 'stand-in' for you, but you always knew I would never lay a hand on you in anger.
The fact that you still have the ability even today, to take my small, black, heart (in theory) or my slightly enlarged, red heart (in reality) and smash it to a thousand pieces is also my fault. I have to understand that you are bad, you've always been bad at your core, even when you were good, you were still bad. I don't know that it's all your fault, this terminal badness, but I do know that, at my advanced age, I have to give up on things that are bad for me. Besides bacon cheese burgers, you are the thing mostly like to put me in the stone-cold ground, therefore I am forced to give you up.
You were my second love, in a time when me and the one above were on one of our 'breaks', I met you. You were living in M_____ at the time, and I was in the stage of anywhere, anyone, but the one above. Not the greatest start to a relationship for sure, but sometimes you take what you can get. You were in many ways 'my teenage rebellion' though I was no longer a teenager when we met. You were not the prettiest thing in the world to anyone but me, and that was all that mattered. You quite quickly (and sadly correctly) figured out that the reason I 'picked' you was that you weren't the one above. It was a shite way to start a relationship, and you underperformed' throughout the relationship. I think it was because you knew that my heart was broken, and though you tried to mend it at least twice, you just couldn't be the one above. Completely and totally my fault, but that didn't (at least to me) make me love you any less. It was just a different kind of love, a love born of caution, and reserve, and those types of love do not last, they can not last. I tried, or at least I thought I did, even when you moved to D_____, I followed you for a spell, but know I realized I was chasing a dream that couldn't exist, and will not exist for either you or for me. I would apologize, but it would be meaningless to us both. You still managed, in the attempt to put me back together, to break a few important pieces of me, and I thing that "that" at least is your fault. This relationship is bad for us both, therefore I am forced to give you up.
You were my third love, the tragedy of us was that I met you about the same time I met my second love, and even in the same city. It was a tragi-comedy to watch me trying to 'juggle' you both. I am sure that several of my 'friend' thought me two stops shy of East Ham (Barking), and they were probably correct. I guess the second, being unable to fill the hole of the first completely enough for my tastes, needed some help, at least in my opinion. I doubt the second would have agreed overmuch with that opinion, which was also a problem with us, we had (and still have) different ideas of where this 'relationship' was and is going. I always thought it would be easier when number two moved away, but it didn't. It left you the 'battlefield' (as it were) clear of rivals, but it was still a battlefield, and I was on it. I've always thought that when you find yourself on a battlefield, one is obligated to give battle, and that is what I did in the emotional sense. You must have felt somewhat differently, which was an occurrence that happened far too often, because you got so angry with me on our mutual battlefield, that you slapped the shite out of me twice. Both times I 'deserved' it, and neither time did I respond in kind. You knew, just like number one, that I would ever lay a hand upon you in anger, and you were right, and you still are. We achieved a monstrous success once, perhaps in spite of ourselves, and I thought we would 'live' forever, however that success was, and remains a false dawn. A broken promise of the nirvana that we could achieve together, since then we have not came anywhere close to that one massive success. I think we kept each other around just in the hope that we could reach those dizzy heights again. I don't think we can, and I am fairly certain you agree, therefore I am forced to give you up.
You were my fourth love, close in time, but not a contemporary of any of the ones mentioned above. I found you mostly by accident, and was smitten right away. You were always "my sweet C____." Your name was just perfect for putting the words 'my sweet' in front of, I think you got tired of that little peccadillo of mine, and I can't really blame you. You were amazing when you were on, and awful when you weren't. Luckily for me, you were amazing much more than you were awful. Of all the five mentioned (or about to be mentioned) you were the one that was my most successful relationship. Three times we climbed the relationship Mount Everest together, and I swore that you were the 'one'. The one of all this motley group that I would never, ever, even consider giving up. I was wrong which is no great surprise. Recently you have flattered to deceive, and being deceived is no fun (as I am sure you would all agree considering the deception I pulled on you). I understand that I am getting what I deserve from you, and I know exactly what I did to deserve it, but that doesn't make it hurt any less. Odd, you would think it would. But it doesn't, the bruises you leave on my soul are just as painful as any I have felt before, and I think you have more of them in your locker. I am getting too old, and perhaps I bruise too easily, but I cannot take this battering anymore therefore, I am forced to give you up.
Finally, there is you, number five on this 'hit parade' of my failed relationships. I came to you much later than the rest, and I like to think it was because I had matured (at least in years), and you were different than the rest. Like a finely aged wine, you were the classy one of the lot. You were, and remain way above my station in life, and perhaps that is the problem you are just a bit too elegant for my prole ass. Even people who did not like you much, or were your sworn enemies (of which you have a few, perhaps that was the attraction), would say about you that you were a 'joy to watch' when you were in the right mood. The problem, shockingly enough, is that you became increasingly not in the mood. I am not sure who is to blame for that, but of course I do not accept any of that blame. Looking back, I realize the problem with us, was that I met you just before you were to start a two year 'run' of being the best of moods possible. It was like a little piece of heaven. I thought I had found the lost city of gold, but as it turned out (after seeing your mood grow increasingly sour) that it was fool's gold. I am, in many, many ways a fool, proof of which is provided by the fact that I stayed 'with' you for nearly 9 years after the good times had stopped. In those halcyon days of our first meeting you stole my heart, and to prove it, I got your name tattooed on myself 'in alphabetic file' (as the saying goes). I don't regret doing that, but the meaning of that tattoo has changed. No longer it is a badge of pride like it used to be, now it is a constant reminder of another of my poor choices. I am so sorry, in so many ways, because you are still class in my opinion, and I will remain fond of you, but I am forced to give you up.
These five loves of mine are now lost to me, it was in many ways my own fault for repeatedly following my heart, and not my head. A fool is a fool many times over before they, hopefully, realize the extent of their foolishness, and I have been an uniformed fool for far too long. The reality of all of these failures is like an albatross around my neck. My own personal badge of failure, and it has become more than I can bear. Therefore, this reality, a reality in which I eventually drown or collapse under the combined weight of five failures, has to be altered. I can no longer carry on with the stiff upper lip, like some British lord getting bombed out of his ancestral home by Nazi bombers all the while thinking everything will be alright in the end, things might turn out that way, but that is a fool's wager, and I am out of fool's money to bet. I have shed this reality like a snake shedding it's skin, and now have invented some fantasy world in which I have some modicum of control, and hopefully more successes than any of myself and the five lost loves have provided. Here's hoping.
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