Unrequited love, cruelest of all.

It wasn’t his fault that he fell for someone whom he could never have. Being so close, talking daily, liking a girl who’s constantly beside him is harder than it would be under different circumstances. It might be his fault that he realized it too late, but it’s not his fault that he fell for his best friend.

I met him against the odds, yet there was something about him I couldn’t quite place. Maybe it was the sadness trapped in his eyes, longing for something he never had. Or maybe it was just his smile. The broken type. We made small talk and hit humor in the gaps yet there was a story waiting to be unveiled and so I made him talk.

Hours went by in a blur, and his words got heavy. I stared at him in bewilderment as he talked about her and him and distasteful about her lover. His story had me engrossed and his words made me feel a little too morose. I understood how he felt. I remembered how I had once felt . But nothing matters enough, he would still call her despite of knowing that she would never be his. She’s in love with another man. She isn’t his to keep. Yet he’s hopeless, hopelessly in love with her.  And in the very moment, “I wanted to punch him and understand him at the same time.”

It’s saddening to watch him walk miles of yards desperate for a glimpse of her, clueless to his own feelings, loving a person whose affections lies elsewhere. There was something in his gaze. Something deep and raw. The way he looked at her. I got it then. He loved her, and it was killing him. He wouldn’t get over her, I whispered, he can’t.”

And there’s nothing I could do.  For I know the painful truth., that it never dies. The unrequited love cruelest of all. It’s always there, suppressed down to a secret place where it hides, wrapped and scarred. For some unfortunates it turns, cruel and cold. But I ache for those who come after, who pay the prize for the damage done by the one who left.

And thus I quote Abraham Cowley,

“A mighty pain to love it is,
And ‘t is a pain that pain to miss;
But of all pains, the greatest pain
It is to love, but love in vain.”