The Butterflies Died

They died because I've had to suffocate them. You will learn that I misread situations professionally. It is embarrassing and never any less. I didn't necessarily misread this one, but I hoped too strongly for how it would continue to read, and I was wrong. For the first time maybe ever, I could actually see and wanted, a future with someone. I didn't have a lot of reasons to think it wouldn't happen, except for my horrible track record, which proved consistent: I can't make 'em stay. I don't know what it is about me, but I get to a certain point with a guy and its like I hit the "repulsive button" and off they go. It's not even always at the same point, sometimes its a lot sooner or later than others. I have no idea what I do to cause them to so abruptly lose interest in me. But for one reason or another, they always just, stop. Stop texting, stop calling, stop dropping by, stop chasing, romancing and pursuing me.
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All I want is to love and be loved. But I don't know how to do that. I have so much love to give, it's built up so fiercely. I'll learn your dreams and support them, and help you build them to make them a reality. I'll discover your demons and walk right into your darkness; I'll touch the most broken pieces of you, and love you more for them. I'll stand loyally by your side when everyone else says you're wrong, I will see the good in you when no one else can or wants to. I will defend you like you've never been defended before. I will love you to my own detriment, and keep loving you when I think I am empty. I will empty myself of love and still have love rushing in to give. I don't know how not to love fiercely. And all I want is someone to love.
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Do you ever feel like "I'm about to make a huge mistake"...and know you're going to make it anyways? I'm there. He's not right, the time isn't right, my family wouldn't approve. My friends wouldn't understand. It would be chaotic, passionate, emotional, one to go down in history...it wouldn't be right. It would be all kinds of wrong. I think we would both encounter demons neither of us expects. And yet for two days now I have hardly stopped thinking about him. I hardly know him, I don't even like him. But I want this wild oat. This reckless fling. This thoughtless autumn lover. I want this chance to love with abandon and be empty and broken when it's over, because at least then I'll feel like I've loved. Because I'll know at the end of it someone felt all the weight of the love that's been building in me for so long.
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The truth is, it's not this fling I truly want. It's the boy with the butterflies. The one with the beard, and the eyes and the hands and the fashion sense and the geeky side and the terrible shoes and the taste for black coffee and the horrible questions. The truth is I'm not over him at all, I still want him. And I can't have him.