Life’s not fair, they all said. Have you ever had your heart ripped out? No, you haven’t. I have. It’s like living, but only in the literal sense. I’m seeing in color but feeling in black and white. I was living for a purpose, following a path, but now I’m standing in the darkest night with nowhere to go. I’m aimless, shifting, gliding along without a direction. Most of the time I wonder why on earth I’m still alive, yet I can’t imagine death would bring many benefits, for that’s my destiny later on anyways. I’m selfish, I know. Think about others, they all say. I’ve also heard that you can’t love anyone else if you don’t love yourself. How can I love myself when my only source of worth just walked out the back door without so much as a wave, dissolving into the breeze for all eternity, leaving a thin trail of dust. Yes, I’ll admit He was my night and day. My inhale and exhale. My time and space. I was His, and he was mine. We meant to keep it that way forever. But Life’s not fair, now is it, they all said. He and I, we were stronger than titanium. Together we could reach the farthest star, we could climb the highest mountain and swim across the Pacific Ocean. You’ll make it, that all said, except my mother, pessimist that she was. But they all, they all saw our strength, they saw our magic. And we had it. Hand in hand, He and I, we created fields of flowers and unicorns to graze in the meadows. We feasted on the food of kings and had visits from every seeker of truth, for they saw in us what my other never could. He built me castles in the sky, with visions of our future dancing in his bright mermaid eyes. Yes, we invented that color. Sharing the same hue of chameleon eyes that could shift from sky blue to lake green to gray the color of pain, we dubbed the shade “mermaid,” taking after the shimmery, silvery-blue scales on those flashing tails of wonder and excitement. He’s crazy, they all said, but so are you, so it’ll work. And we believed them, He and I. And oh, were we crazy. We traveled to far-away lands, fought ogres, giants, and slew a leviathan. We found a cure for cancer, won an Emmy, and invented an instrument. We revised the Odyssey, raced cheetahs, and defied every one of Newton’s laws. We discovered a new species of bird, bungee jumped on the moon, the two of us. You’ll change the world, they all said. And I believed them. Yet through it all, my mother sat, shaking her head. Be careful. She’d say, He’s a flame and you’ll get scorched. I laughed, nonsense. But how did I get to be where I am now? One night we went comet hunting with our bows of bronze, and the next, I was lying in the shadow of a skull on the cold, vengeful earth. What is the ruthless equation that can turn a wild dance to a funeral march? It took my cornerstone, my rock, my song, my angel, and turned my heart to ash. Was it math or physics? Give me a calculation. I’ll solve it. Did the economy fail? Give me any amount. I’ll pay it. Was a heinous crime committed? Give me a sentence. I’ll serve it. Just give Him back to me, my heart. I told you, my mother said, I told you to look out. I screamed at her face and crawled back into my cave, a cave where those diagnosed with leprosy of the soul are exiled. A cave marked with ancient, creaking boards that support the hollow tunnels where these self-proclaimed miners spend a lifetime searching for gems in vain, blindly stumbling around in the darkness. I, like them, am lost and visionless. But I, and I alone, am wise enough to understand the futility of their ceaseless pursuit of shiny treasures, for there is no hope remaining. For you, you strip the world of its last bits of hope. You, O Fate, have allied with Father Time to rob me of all I hold dear. And have you, you O Fate ever had your heart ripped out? No, how could you? For you are the driving force behind all men’s dreams and fears, and you arm yourself with Mother Nature, creating a duo strong enough the bonds of young, true love. Such as mine. No. You have never known pain so sharp, nor skies so bleak, nor hurt so tangible as I have. But neither have you known life in its fullest nor love in its entirety. Perhaps it is envy, O Fate, that drives you to madness, that provokes you to plant your strongest weapon in the hearts and minds of those you resent most. And this seed, though small, is deadly enough to destroy nations and tear apart the strongest of unions. Doubt. He and I, we had everything going for us. Yet my mother, she possessed your disease. And Doubt spread like a cancerous cell until it penetrated the very innermost crevice in His soul. Doubt it was that manipulated his heart, and Doubt it was that caused him to question every truth he’d set his mind upon. Ignore your doubts, they all said. But try as He did, Doubt it was that broke equilibrium when Delilah came into his life, and all hell broke loose inside of me. He disappeared before my eyes, my star-crossed lover who, with me, overcame all odds to obtain something more valuable than all the riches in the world. Something he threw away that day. We, we were meant to conquer the world, He and I, but you, you O Fate have demolished every scrap of hope I ever owned and slapped me in the face, waving that ugly little seed of yours before me. Doubt, the seed that sows discord for everyone it its path. You are cunning, that is for certain. And so, I’ve come to believe that you have never had your heart ripped out. Because that’s what you deserve, and no one in this life ever gets what they deserve. Life’s not fair, they all say. Move on, they all say. But no matter how much they all say, they will never understand, for they are the ones who try to reduce love to a mere definition of human words. They are Morons. So I plaster on the well-practiced smile and trudge through life to satisfy their desire for happy endings. But they, those Morons, are too ignorant to realize that happy endings are fantasies, and dreams never come true. For you, O Fate, won’t be satisfied to let anyone have more than you yourself, even a girl so young and pure as I. You destroy and pillage and burn, leaving those like me crumpled in a worthless pile among the ashes of love. Here I sit, day after day, cradling the few handfuls of dust I could save of the memories of Him. And I am left here to rot, with books worth of memories and a gaping hole in my left chest cavity. He and I, we owned the world. Or so we thought. We were capable of breaking every curse known to mankind, outsmarting every philosopher of old, and outliving every ancient tale. Alas, you O Fate have the crown upon your brow and the Winds of Change within your lungs. That is why you planted that infectious seed within my mother’s brain. That is why the Morons walk as dumbly as sheep each and every day. Those Morons, they were right about one thing. Life’s not fair, they all said. And that, O Fate, is why I shall never love again.