A journey through fire, ice, and needles

There's been times when I wanted to laugh. I laughed.
There's been times when I wanted to cry. I cried.

But for those times that I've wanted to love, there's never been a moment without doubt, without a sense of insecurity, without some sort of sadness. How can that be? Isn't love supposed to strengthen, to ward off evil, to conquer the demon of sorrow?
Through these (barely) 20 years of my life, there's many multiple attempts to revolt against the constant optimism, the everlasting gladness that somehow, tricks the heart into thinking that the happiness would last. Sadly, these battles have been lost, and I have charged forward in my desire to love and be loved... battles of stupidity, rather.
Too late had logic entered this brain, too futile had efforts been to remove this cursed disease of emotion... too sad had my hopes been that failure was the only answer. I suppose it is even too much to ask for that they forget... for there must have been something there first in order to forget...
Beyond all previous rants and hatred upon every individual, a certain close friend of mine reminded me that it was because I still had optimism and aspirations that I fell so far... and so hard, when the ultimate truth would hit me. Right in the face. Sucker punched like someone far stupider than me and my dreams.
But it was true. My regrets, my past, my present, and my still unclear future lie there, in the darkness, waiting for realization from their owner, while I continue to wander in the meadows of ignorance. I no longer relive my regrets because I know they are regrets, but my past haunts me in my dreams and my present, making me immobile in the face of such pain. There is no escape.
My present looms in the air, taunting me with its knowing smirk and tilted head, almost as if it knows where everything is going. And my future... well, it can't get any worse. I hope.
It's in these dreams that I realize what my mind wants me to see. The places, the people... the life. I see large, luxurious houses that are vacant, money piling up to make mountains, the power of flight... and him.

Who knows what poison I drank to feel this way? And what trickery the three Fates had prescribed in my medication?
I wanted flings. I got a painful friendship.
I wanted kisses. I got an inevitable distance.
I wanted comfort. I got insecurity.
I wanted him... I got nothing.
Nothing except the thin slice of hope that still resides in my beating heart, a heart that I thought was once dead, which I hoped was dead. But it still thadumps. It beats to render me a fool. A fool no longer able to see what she wants.
What exactly do I want? What do I need? This is all wrong...
I wanted someone foreign, but now I need one of a rather familiar race...
I wanted someone social, but now I need a wallflower...
I wanted someone amazingly sexy, but now I need... someone real.
Looks, aspirations, ideals, and personality no longer matter anymore. That's so extremely frightening. It doesn't matter what I want... but what has become of all my standards, my list of requirements... my desires.

Never before was I willing to wait, for my impatience is well-known. Never before was I willing to just stay at a distance, being happy just because he and I exist, for my greediness exceeds measurement. Never before... was I willing to alter what I believed in, all that I cared for... to get one smile, one laugh, one extra moment, for my steadfastness goes beyond the density of stone.
But now... everything is different. I want to wait, I want to make somebody of him, of me, of us... I actually feel a desire to sacrifice part of myself to be with him. WHAT HAS HAPPENED TO THIS GIRL THAT RESIDES IN MY BODY?
Platonic never felt like a bigger knife being thrust and then rotated endlessly in my chest. It cuts into the lungs, dragging the air from my body. It hits my stomach, where it just clenches in pain. And lastly, it tears away the tissue from the beating heart that never should have been, never should have beat in joy and hope. It never should have even mattered.
Perhaps I am being overdramatic... perhaps I'm turning into one of those women whom I detest. But it's not fair. It's really not fair.
Do I have to crawl on my hands and knees over hot needles to make him realize what I would do for him?
Does he have to see my soul in order to know that he possesses it?
And even if I do all that, can he even overcome his own requirements and goals to see the possibilities?
I suppose that'd be taking too much for granted. Silly me, taking things for granted again.

I guess it doesn't matter anymore, since this episode of my life is over. The familial closeness that we've achieved is only going to go downhill from here, the friendliness that we've garnered will only evaporate into the cold frosty air of Ithaca... the spark that I've carried for him will just fade away into the darkness of reality.

For, there is no such thing as a forever flame... but who am I to say whether there is or not, since I've never gotten a taste of the sweet ambrosia that is forever...