Emo...

Foolish Heart
by Steve Perry

I need a love that grows
I don't want it unless I know

Love comes and goes, but what one would hope for is a love that grows. When I put my mind into it, I know all too well that I shouldn't be giving my heart out to someone unless I know that it wouldn't be an effort gone to waste.

I know, I know, I know. But what I know can't quite add up with what I feel. What may seem to be madness on the surface, is something that has reasons that run so deep and is far more complex than a mere feeling that I am just entertaining.

With each passing hour
Someone somehow
Will be there, ready to share

Love isn't always something that comes along mutually. I truly wish I could expect one whom I'd love to love me back as well, but it doesn't work that way. That's why when I think about it, I don't want to love or so much as give my affection to someone whom I'm unsure of. If I can't begin to expect reciprocation, why even bother, right?

Easier said than done.

I need a love that's strong
I'm so tired of being alone

I don't want a fling. I don't want a kissing buddy. I don't want a fleeting relationship. I want something that could last for me. I wear my heart on my sleeve precisely because whenever I give out my heart to someone, I always expect it to be my last. Quite simply, I don't want to just give my heart out to someone and still end up being alone after the fact.

Again, easier said than done.

But will my lonely heart play the part
Of the fool again
Before I begin

Tanga. That's the best way to explain why I am this way. Then again, perhaps the best way to put it in the vernacular is, nagpapakatanga para sa iyo.

I know, I know, I know. Despite that, my heart doesn't quite see things the same way my head does.

I'm feeling that feeling again
I'm playing a game I can't win

Ever get the feeling that you're just getting played? Ever get the feeling that when you show someone your affection and stick your neck out without them doing the same, that they have so much power over you?

I feel like putty in your hands. I feel like a puppet to every whim and fancy, and all for what? The dim hopes of ever ending up with you?

I never learn. I never do.

Love's knocking on the door
Of my heart once more

Or is it, really? How sure am I it's really love knocking on the door of my heart once more? What if I'm only deluding myself and pushing myself into something and proving time and again that I would've been one of those kids who can never quite pass the marshmallow test?

It sometimes hits a frustrating crescendo, and then I'd act in a way that I would completely regret, after all has been said and done. One would wish that things didn't work that way for me, that throughout it all, I'd keep that deliberate pace in building towards love, but time and again, I rush and ruin everything for myself.

Now, you've lost your respect for me. You've lost your trust, your everything in me. I shudder to think if that one small iota of chance we had to get together, that smallest of sparks if circumstances would just work in our favor, is completely expunged now.

I was stupid. I can't apologize enough for it, nor can I forgive myself for doing that.

I never learn. I never do.

Think I'll let her in
Before I begin

I invest too much. Even though I keep telling myself I shouldn't do that, I know no other way, than to make it a point to make you feel special. To make you feel cherished. All I asked was for you to accept it and yet you couldn't even do that.

It was at this point that I realized that your being nice to me was you sticking your neck out for me. If it were up to you, I know you'd rather just push me away, eradicate me from your life, and move on. You say there's nothing I can do to change that.

I know, I know, I know. But I feel differently about that. Deep down, I know you do, as well.

Foolish heart, hear me calling

I beg my heart to listen to my head just once. It's just too difficult to emotionally drain myself time and again for someone, and inadvertently drain them as well along the way. It's time to put a stop to this, and to rebuild whatever there is left for me to salvage between us.

It's funny. For someone who is known for being one of the most “intellectual” and “cerebral” persons by most people who initially get to know me, I'm apparently one of the most emotional all a the same time.

Stop before you start falling

I pray that I don't fall for you all over again, only to have my foolish heart broken again, all the same. I can't help the way I feel, but I can help the way I think, and I'd want to think of you in a purely Platonic manner unless and until circumstances are in our favor and you are more receptive to the idea of someone loving for you the way I would.

Until then, I shouldn't fall for you. I really, really shouldn't. But how do I do that when I still have to be a part of your life to somehow make something between you and me a possibility? It's a balance I have to strike, and it's a matter of trial and error. I'm sorry if I have failed in that regard.

Foolish heart, heed my warning

My heart would just keep getting broken if I don't change pace. I recognize that much. But whenever I think of you, a smile comes over my face, and I forget all that I know in the face of someone as beautiful and as wonderful as you.

Please forgive me for feeling that way. Please forgive me if you are my cause for joy. I guess you're just someone special who just really struck me from out of the blue with a vengeance. I can't begin to explain how that feeling just envelopes me awash and I fee light-headed and fuzzy all the time, knowing full well despite the feeling that the feeling isn't mutual.

One moment, I was going on along with life, doing just fine. The next moment, you came along, and I end up asking myself how I've been doing without you all this time.

You've been wrong before

My heart has been broken for so many times already that I don't even know how I still find it in me to love someone all over again, or to so much as just show them how special they actually are.

More often than not, I am completely wrong about that person. They aren't quite the person whom I put up on the pedestal. They aren't quite the penultimate wonderful people that I saw them to be.

Don't be wrong any more

And yet, was my heart ever really wrong, per se? Or isn't it the case that when I see your imperfections, I learn to appreciate you even more, and learn how it is to accept someone, so-called flaws and all, because I know I myself am far from perfect?

Has it ever really been wrong? Or has it just been a case of me carrying myself in a way that could've been better?

Most of us would go about life without giving all this a second thought. After all, life is just a biological process that goes on and on for as long as God wills it to be so.

Then again, life isn't all about how many breaths you take, or how many times your heart beats. Life, more than that, is all about how many moments take your breath away, and how many times your heart skips a beat.

For you. All for you.

Foolish, foolish, foolish heart. You'll never learn.

.:It Never Stops: The Unsent Series, Vol. II, Part I:.

Dear Affection,

It would appear you and Marcelle have come to a point of deadlock. While he wishes to be given the chance to make you feel special, you simply don't want that because of the circumstances that envelope the situation.

Marcelle understands that you're both equally stubborn in opposite directions he refuses to yield, you refuse to compromise. Somehow, that just feels sad. Because you know all too well he cares about you, yet because of all these self-fulfilling prophecies, how can it be any other way than that both of you simply cannot ever hope to get along?

You believe this to be the most emotionally draining “relationship” you've ever taken part in, and Marcelle cannot apologize enough for that. All he ever really wants is to make you happy. All he really wants is to somehow make you come to realize that the circumstances are worth working around for the betterment of one another.

Is it really too late for a chance to make things right? Is it really too late for an “us” to speak of? Or are you and he just really not trying hard enough? Does he really expect too much? Do you really want none of this? Or perhaps has he merely failed the marshmallow test again?

The last thing he'd ever want is to make you sad, or to hurt you. After all, he wishes to shower all his affection upon you and make you feel special in every single way that he could. Marcelle is sorry with all his heart, and all he wants right now is to do right by you.

Please, dear affection... don't let you and he be victims of circumstances. Don't let it all fall to naught and be a monumental waste of time for the both of you. Both of you deserve far better than that.