Love, you have always played a cruel game of hide-and-seek

Love, you have always played a cruel game of hide-and-seek with me. My entire life, I’ve walked through fields of longing, peered into every shadow, whispered your name into the wind, but you, love, remained just beyond my grasp. A myth, a whisper, a promise that never materialized. I searched, oh how I searched, believing you were meant for someone else, always someone else.

And then, a moment. A breathtaking, fragile moment when you finally, finally showed yourself. God sent me a man, a brief, beautiful supernova in my desolate sky. He didn't just find me; he saw me, truly saw me, and in his gaze, I felt a worthiness I’d never dared to claim. It was a truth, a revelation: I was capable of love, worthy of receiving it, of giving it in return. But oh, love, you were merciless. I blinked, just for a second, and you were gone. It wasn’t a slow fade; it was a screeching halt, a sudden, brutal silence. You ran away so fast, a speeding phantom, leaving me in the dust, wondering if I had even truly felt your warmth, or if it was just a phantom limb sensation of a love I was never truly allowed to grasp. I did not get to feel how and what love truly is.

Now, there’s just this hollow ache where he used to be. My husband. I miss him every single day, every breath a testament to the happiness that was ripped away. I am not happy. He died. And now I’m back in the fields of longing, but this time, the shadows are deeper, the fear heavier. oh god, can you send me love again? oh god, please. I am so tired of this emptiness. Will love ever find me again, or will I be too afraid to even try? Will the memory of its swift departure forever paralyze me, keep me from reaching out, from daring to believe in a forever that was proven to be a mere second?