Shattered Cupid

Shattered Cupid

I used to feel like a bright white fluffy cloud on a blue skied summers day. Now I’m just lost somewhere in the black mass of nighttime.

Those summer days were the days, way back when I used to be the Cupid of my friends group. I was the one they came to for relationship advice, the one they always asked if I thought they had a chance with someone else. The matchmaker, the hopeless romantic, the one who always saw the good in love and all it had to bring. No matter what there was always a soulmate out there for everyone, and if things didn’t work out it wasn’t your person so don’t give up hope. 

A practice run for the real thing for myself, I never gave up on my soulmate belief ever. But that was soooo long ago now, so far in the past I swear it wasn’t even a lifetime ago but more like 20 lifetimes ago. 

That was in the times of my life where I was full of passion and fire, tssst don’t touch this too hot to handle, now I’m more too cold to hold.

Why would somebody become the complete opposite of themselves? You might ask, well it takes a lot. A lot of heartaches, a lot of hurt, a lot of lies, a lot of betrayal, a lot of that one just wasn’t my persons. 

Eventually living in constant hope, that next time it will be your person and telling yourself that wasn’t your person, they weren’t the one, anyone would have believed their lies, it’s not you it’s them, it just wasn’t meant to be. Don’t give up hope your true love is just around the corner. You finally realise this corner is too big to wait near. Every time you think they finally popped around the corner! It ends up the same way, another mistake on your part to have believed. Until it wears you out, you hit your 50s and see that you have spent your whole life hoping for that corner to finally shrink enough for your true love to bump into you.

You have spent at least half of your life giving it your best shot with all the wrong people. Not only that; the last one really scared the hell out of you.To the point you were left questioning whether you had ever known good from evil in life? 

The last one not only lied, cheated and played pretend with your heart, but they toyed with your own instincts so much you couldn’t trust your own judgment anymore. Leaving you asking yourself how you didn’t see that coming?

You’re left with “if I can’t trust my own instincts, I cant ever get it right.” 

You find yourself completely worn down, burnt out to the flat disc and slight burning ember of a completely melted down candle. Your light has completely gone. Especially when you have also seen betrayal from those you thought were your friends. 

All this alongside your own judgment of your soul mate, (at least that’s who you thought they were) having actually been your own doomsday ticket holder.

Just like a candle burns out and down to nothing. You went from the bright flickering candle full of a heat, that has the wax melting into you to a blackened out wick in a pool of hot oil, which hardens back into cold solid wax. While it has you imprisoned in the centre with no escape, no more flame, and a lonely frozen existence.

***

He took my flame, pretended to care for it, fuelled it to glow briefly. Then he spat on it and blew it completely out, leaving me with smoke and embers to try to rebuild from. 

After loosing myself to both him and myself, I’ve slowly rebuilt the last five years of my life into something new. I’m no longer a passion filled bright burning candle. Instead I’m a tree! Firmly rooted into the earth, with a solid trunk containing a hollow gap inside, protecting the hidden deep sea of emotions I used to share with the world.

Now numb to the world, a shadow of burnt memories, a cold rocky surface hiding hot lava within. A shade of darkness, life flowing by around me, an ice cube in a darkened frozen pond. 

I’m a shattered cupid, a black hole of nothing, no more hope. If I met the old me I’d be a complete stranger to myself. 

I’m from two different worlds. Where there used to shine a bright blazing ball of light like the summer sun smiling on the world, from a cloud free beautiful blue sky. There is now a blanket of blackened darkness covering the tiny glints of light that could be my scattered soul, and I’m a cold lonely moon sitting waiting for the blue skies and sunshine I used to know.

From day to night from light to dark from hot to frozen, from a lifetime of slow dripping poison having built up into a cruel torturous chamber of past human cruelty to a depressing reality of hopelessness. I’m sunk into the depths of the earth, suffocated from the lack of clean air wondering when I lost the light. 

That’s how a Cupid lost their bow, lost their belief and lost their hope. There is no true love, no soulmate, there is no person for everyone, there is nothing but a queue of unknown length to the end of life.

Nothing seams to bring back the light of hope. I sink further and further with no idea how to fix me this time. I’m exhausted, done! no return. All I can do is be still and rest. 

***

I look in my mirrored reflection, it’s as dark as my surroundings. I sigh, of course it is, what did I expect? I’m the yin that lost my yang. I need to find it, but I’m not sure how? All I know is I don’t like this dark miserable place. I want to feel the warmth again, see the light, dance in the belief of hope, shine like the brightest star and replant myself above the ground. 

I’ve spent way too long here. I’ve forgotten who I am, there’s enough doom and gloom in the world. My place was always to remind others of the good, my place was to bring comfort and joy, my place was to show people that it’s love the world needs not hate. We all have a purpose but I lost mine. I need to find my yang. I’m embraced in my yin like I was once embraced in my yang, now I need to join them together and complete myself. If only I could find Yang.

***

I wonder along drifting through this blinding treacle to find my missing pieces. 

I’ve consoled the darkness embraced and accepted it, taken it in completely and feel it as a part of me. Every time I see something that may bring hope it takes me back to hopeless, but I can’t give up, let’s see! 

I watch happy couples in love and know that one day it will all fail and they’ll tear themselves apart. Nope not there yet. 

I feel the sunrise getting warmer over the day, feeling its warmth within me, and I know it will set and bring the cold darkness back within the same 24 hours, sending a shiver through me.

I hear the children’s laughter as they play, filling my sound senses with joy and I know they will hurt themselves and each other. They will also cry and face so many losses as they grow older. I fear my yang is still out of reach so try again.

I smell the perfume from the flowers as they bloom and I know that they will crumble and die away, back to the ground.

I stick my tongue out and taste the icy snowflakes as they fall from above and I know they too will hit the ground and melt away. This fills my eyes with tears, there is still no hope. 

Overwhelmed with sadness I think to myself I tried, but it all came back to the negatives in the end. 

I sigh again ‘huh’, then take another look in my darkened mirror. Only this time it doesn’t reflect me as all dark like I was expecting. This time it’s quite the opposite, in the mirror my reflection has a bright lit face staring back. It shocks me to see this unexpected brightness reflected. 

‘I don’t understand! I’m trying to think positively, yet I come back to dim thoughts, why would what was a dark image suddenly light up? ‘ 

I don’t expect a response, but strangely I receive one. 

‘I am the light side of the dark side you have become: Your mirrored image of the lighted beacon of hope to others you once were. 

I’ve brought back your heart, though your soul still needs work. Step through to the light side once more, and we will journey together to find and rebuild your soul. We will relight you, free your darkness and bring the balance you currently miss. Look again at the statements you made, they each miss something.’

Ok, with nothing to loose I think back to the first statement: 

‘I watch happy couples in love and I know that one day it will all fail and they’ll tear themselves apart’. I believe it should actually be ‘I see happy couples in love, I know some will tear themselves apart for various reasons, but some of them will go so far as to last a lifetime’. On changing the first statement, I naturally sense a slight inner tug of a more peaceful fullness beginning to replace the hollow emptiness. So I carry on, ‘I feel the sunrise getting warmer over the day, feeling its warmth within me m, and I know it will set and bring the cold darkness back within the same 24 hours, sending a shiver through me.’ I believe that should be ‘I feel the warmth from the sun rising within me as it gets hotter throughout the day, leading into a pleasant warmth of memory through the cold darkness, bringing with it a different kind of beauty of calmness to appreciate.’ I was getting good at this, my heart was definitely thawing from the solid ice around it. I need to keep going, ‘I hear the children’s laughter as they play filling my sound senses with joy and I know they will hurt themselves and each other. They will also cry and face many losses as they grow older’. Of course there is truth in that statement. Most definitely in the second part, but with rewording it can be more positive.‘I hear the children’s laughter as they play, filling my sound senses with joy.

I also know they may hurt themselves or others and face many losses in their futures leading to tears, but that doesn’t stop them from enjoying the present.’ A smile is definitely starting to appear on my face, I’m definitely feeling lighter in myself. Two more to go ‘I smell the perfume from the flowers as they bloom and I know they will crumble and die away back to the ground’ yes this is the truest of them all! But it still does miss something? lets see ‘I smell the perfume from the flowers as they bloom, waving to the world in their glory and I know they will crumble and die away back to the ground, but they will shine again through regrowth or others memories of them.’ After four tugs towards the old me, I can tell half of my body is between the two mirror worlds. Only my head is fully in darkness or light. It’s almost as if I’ve been stitched back together, but still need to make one last adjustment to bring my two heads back to one place. So hear goes, final statement ‘I stick my tongue out and taste the icy snowflakes as they fall from above, and I know they too will hit the ground and melt away.’ A rearrangement to ‘I stick my tongue out and taste the icy snowflakes as they fall from above, and I know some of them will hit the ground and melt away instantly, but others will get to stay. Either for a few minutes, a few hours, a few days, a few weeks or even for months. In this time they will build a beautiful white carpeted ground. Some of those that stay will be rolled into balls and fly through the air, and some will be made into snowmen, all before they finally melt away.’

As I now turn my head towards the darkened mirror. I know the dark and light have joined together, the yin has found the yang and I feel full and whole again.

I’m ready to bring love hope and peace with me. As my two halves merge completely together into the mirror, its light shatters away into the dark sky above, glittering and sparkling along with the many other stars and beauty in the night sky. I am no longer a shattered Cupid but instead a rebuilt and much stronger Cupid than before. 

The End