My muse

While putting spikes on my shoes last saturday, I found myself wondering—why do I dress like I do? Why do I speak like I do? Why do I walk like I do? Of all the reasons I could think of, the first one that came to mind was her—the first woman I have ever loved. I'll call her D.

I met D. in a cold November evening, at some spot where many unhinged teenagers gathered in my city. We didn't really get along at first. I was 15, she was 18—so that may give you a clue. She was pretty intimidating, by the way, dressed in neon green and black baggy clothes, the left side of her head shaved, and some badass spiked shoes on her feet. Her makeup was wild, and she had eyes tattooed from her neck to the back of her left shoulder. When I tell you I have never met someone as effortlessly cool as her, I truly mean it.

As I said, our relationship started pretty rocky. She used to pick on me quite a lot—it was justified though, I was pretty annoying back then. I struggled to communicate, missed social cues, and was unaware of a lot of things. I kind of envy that naive version of myself. Anyway, D. once fooled me good. By that time I was really a mess, it was my ''hard drugs'' fase, pretty shitty time of my life, to be honest, and I was looking for someone who could sell me some 2CB. D. saw her chance, ground up some medication pills with salt, and sold it to me for five euros. Pretty smart move. I fucking died while snorting that shit, it was so painfull that my eye started watering and all. I swore I'd get back at her, I never did, though.

By the time we started getting along, the cold was long gone, and summer had arrived. I had started hanging out with some of her friends, so naturally, I ended up seeing D. more often. That summer, we spent so much time together, and the more I saw her, the more I wanted to be her number one—just as she was becoming mine. I swear, that summer felt like a dream. She felt like a dream. Maybe I was dreaming all along—how could someone so magical be real?

That is to say, it took me a long time to realize what I wanted. To realize I wanted her, and no one else in the world, and it took me even longer to realize that it was never going to happen. She was out of my leage. I spent all summer giving her my heart and all winter mourning that I'll never have hers. You better believe me when I say—it was the most excruciating, suffocating pain I had felt up to that point in my life. The worst of it all? I never even told her how I felt. And I never will.

Maybe I'll die without knowing the taste of her lips, the warmth of her hugs, the sweetness of her words, the safety of holding her hand, or the erotism of her body. Maybe I don't deserve to know, maybe I never did. She was the first woman I ever loved, and maybe that's the thing that she was meant to give me—a lesson. I'll never wait again, I'll never fall in love with a dream again.