My Music Box

There was a girl once. There were many girls in fact. A guy or two but mostly girls. The girl on my mind was the one who played me songs on her piano and held me when I was sad. She made me smile, she made me laugh and she made me happy. 

There was a boy once. With red hair and amber eyes who lived across the street, he wrote me stories and held my hand. I loved him. And he loved me. 

He loved the girl who played piano and she loved him back. I loved the girl who played the piano and she loved me.

We loved each other.

We had each other.

There were others too, lots of could have beens.

The one who loved me from the shadows. A friend who’d do my makeup and listen to my rants. One with the biggest heart and the biggest smile, a little ray of sunshine in the dark.

There was the girl I loved, my best friend, someone I longed for. With caramel hair and the prettiest of eyes. We camped under the stars in the summers and huddled around the fireplace when it snowed. I longed to be more but she never did. So eventually I moved on.

There was the girl with the eyes like a stormy sea. Who made me unable to speak. Left me helpless in her wake. A school friend, a soccer friend, one who’d always encourage you, would compliment you but then call you an idiot and challenge you to a race. Who’d help you with your homework and then hit you with a pencil when you weren't looking. But she never realized how I cared for her. So I cared for someone else.

I cared for the boy with the amber eyes. Who made me feel like myself, and helped me be myself. I wished for him, he wished for me and it was perfect.

Then there was the girl. The flirty one, the one who played piano, she took me by surprise. I didn't want to long for her while I longed for another but I did so anyways. She occupied my thoughts, my dreams, and my desires. And the way she looked at me made me melt, the way I felt for her, made me afraid.

My amber-eyed boy started longing for her as I did and the feeling became mutual. The three of us longed for each other. So we loved each other and had each other.

And everything was perfect

The events were in perfect order, one lover to the next a movie of my life, a play, a story. 

My life was a music box and I the dancer inside, always spinning around and around. But slowly, and to the tune of my melody playing in my ears. I spun carefully from each moment to the next. I could make out the colors of the pictures of life events I lived through and spun around and around growing older every time I came around once again. New pictures being painted on my walls, new experiences. New loves.

That was how it was supposed to be. Beautiful harmony as my box served its purpose and I, my function.

But one day my screws grew too loose and the box, it broke. It went haywire. My ballerina went out of control. Spinning faster and faster, I was lost and confused. My box didn't know what to do, it kept painting new things, over the old ones, but sloppily. I was living through two different times at once.

It wasn't supposed to be that way. Loves from the past and future approached me. They could have been’s, and the shouldn't have beens. All happening at the same time. I woke up in different weeks, different months, and different years. Each time with a different person by my side and not knowing how I got there. Not knowing why I was there or what I could do.

I wished to disappear.

It was too hard.

It was too much.

So I ran away.

Far

Far away

Away from the girl with caramel hair, away from the one with stormy eyes, away from my ray of sunshine, the boy who wrote me stories, and the girl who played piano.

I ran far, far away.

I didn't want to hurt them. Any of them, but I was confused. I was conflicted and my heart couldn't take it. My guilt weighed down on me for hurting those I cared for with my clouded mind. I didn't know what to do but I couldn't cause any more pain.

So I left.

It was for their better good. All of them. Made things less complicated without my feelings getting in the way.

I wished for them by my sides when the nights grew dark and lonely when the days bled onto each other sunrise after sunrise. I longed for a piano to lull me asleep, a bedtime story, or just someone saying, it's going to be okay. I wished for my boy, and I wished for my girl.

But I wasn't meant for that.

I wasn't good for them

So I had to stay away.

Eventually, the ballerina started to tire. Instead of going too fast she completely stopped. Stopped in one moment.

Forced and stuck there forever

And everyone I loved was gone.

All of them.

Vanished like the ghosts they had become. Memories tugged at my mind of rainy days and starry nights. Beach trips, picnics, and walks in the park. All of my loves like a far-off echo in a forest of darkness. I heard their whispers in the wind and their laughs in the rain. I often imagined their shadows next to me when the fire crackled through the icy wind. Or in a meadow on a sunny day laying beside me in the grass looking at the clouds and blowing on the dandelions on the hill. Making wishes that blew away in the summer breeze. I missed them. All of them.

I hated being alone. But I knew I had spared them.

But still, I wished for them back. I wished for them here.

But I couldn't find them. I couldn't even try, for my box was broken, and so was I.