the land that you leave behind

if i had 5 rupees for every time someone had clung to me with all their life-force, and then abandoned me the instant their life bettered, i would be shitting money. i would have so much money, i would repay my college loans, get myself a phd and travel around the world twice over. and then with all the remaining cash (and there would be plenty), i would ensure that no animal was ever harmed again.

you'd think i would have learnt by now and that i would see such episodes coming my way, that i'd be able to smell them from a distance. aaah, but you see, i can spot them from several hundred miles away, just as i can smell the imminent misuse of my love and affections. this however, does not stop me. it never has and despite the battle scars at age 25, it probably never will.

because, just how do you turn someone away when they claim (and perhaps truthfully so) that they are miserable and broken beyond repair? how do you deny someone your hand when they lie twisted and hurt at your feet? how do you stop yourself from bending down to pick up the million little pieces someone has fallen apart into, when you've been taught it's the right thing to do, and the necessary step to take?

after the help has been given, and the kindness been shown, the real irony takes place. somehow the pitiful, pathetic and broken creatures before me, grow wings and take flight, soaring above me, away from me, and taking from me a huge chunk of myself. somehow their lives transform to ones where their every desire is catered to, and worse still, my every desire, the ones that i have craved and strived for, come to them easily - sometimes even when they do not want it or need it.

the people whose "lives i change," the people who "will never forget me," are drowning in love, the very thing i gave them (and they were unable to give back). Love: the very thing that i find difficult to locate, and harder yet to replenish.

so, use me. go ahead. but do not pretend i will ever matter beyond this point.

and please, do not pretend that those wings that you have grown will ever flutter again through this land that you were so desperate and quick to leave behind.