Anastasiya

I fell in love once.

No, it wasn’t the only time I ever fell in love, but it was the first one.

Now, if it’s ever been true that being first in life is important, then being first in love must be… well, everything!

Her name was Mariana, and she as beautiful as a morning and so smart she shined. I used to call her Mary for short, but when I wanted to drown in the agony of her name I would use all the letters she had impregnated with her beauty:
Mariana Anastasiya Melnikova, Daughter of Ariadna.

I remember when I met her. I remember that day because the clouds had shapes of elephants and bunnies and of good omens.
And then I saw her walking towards me in all her presence… and I never talk to strangers, but her… I knew her since the day that I was born.

And I asked her “Do you want to take a walk?” but what I really meant was “Do you want to fall in love? … Do you want to spend the rest of your life with this poor soul that would die for you?”.
She said yes.
To the walk.
And later, to other things as well.

They say that love is blind, and I think that I was blind. I never saw it coming. I never saw him coming, or going, as many times as he did, and I never saw her going. Going to a place I could not follow.

And I would have never known if not for the tragedy that walked into my life. And I damn the world for being so unfair, and unpredictable… and natural. And I cried an ocean inside when I found out that the rage and the filth of this world had taken her away. And her funeral was somber, but not as somber as my soul.

One day, I was sitting on a solitary bench, just as reality came crashing down on my head and I was ready to give up. That’s when this old man sat next to me and then he looked me in the eye and said “Love Should Always end with Hope”.

And I understood, I understood what he meant. Because that day I started remembering my love.
And I hoped.
I hoped with my heart out to the sun.
I hoped like the man that has nothing else to hope for that I would not forget to love.

And it worked.

Today, I know that love… was not Mariana Anastasiya Melnikova, may her soul rest with the light. I loved her.

But the love… the love is mine.