[Creative Nonfiction] He Used To Be Your Number One

To find yourself, you must lose yourself.

He used to be your number one. Your number one thought. Your number one (try only) subject of conversation. Your number one inspiration (or lack of it). But now you've erased him, and you have a void to fill.

He used to be your number one, till you erased him from your phonebook, deleted him from your YM friends, and attempted - just attempted - to stop replaying all your conversations over and over and over.

Then he started to hurt you, and a little voice in the back of your head - the little voice that keeps you from making a mess (cue Hilary Duff song stylings) - tells you that he's your number one again...your number one problem. And you can't seem to solve him - ehem - it.

Then you watch him fall, the same way you fell, and he becomes your number one again. Your number one object of pity. Now you can forgive him, when you see him that way. When you understand that he and you were one in the same, so things would never have worked out. So now you see him for what he was - not the prince you saw before he broke your heart, or the horrible monster you saw afterwards - but just a boy, just like you were just a girl, just like you can be both dark and light, beauty and ugliness, truth and lie.

You see him with new eyes, see him the way you never saw him - as a human, just like you, who cries inside when you cry aloud, and chases after a dream quietly the way you do so arms flailing and ready to conquer the world. You cannot love him again - it is not in your power, you have changed so much - but you can understand him the way, once upon a time, you dreamt you would. Because now you understand how much he is truly like you, yet unlike you. In knowing him, you know the face in the mirror.

You've let go long ago - you've moved on, you've found other number ones who've come and gone - yet he'll always be the special one. Because you see, he was the one who was most like you, even though he could never understand you. And so while you were hurt - you were cut till it bled, sucked dry till there was nothing left - you forgive. You see him live the same life of quiet desperation you have led time and time again, and you wish him the best.

For you know that fools like you and he need love, and if he finds it, then so will you.