The Cold-Fingered Inferno

I got hit with the double whammy of negative possessive emotions: jealousy and envy. Oftentimes one sees the two terms used interchangeably, but they're really quite distinct. Envy is most often associated with the desire to possess something that belongs to someone else. I have no claim or right to the thing, but I am envious that you have it and I do not. Jealousy is the belief that I have more right to the thing that you do, though it was given to you. It can also be a desire to hold fast to a thing I already possess, as well.

I was blindsided by it. I just turned around and got overwhelmed. Oh, how I envied the guy. Oh, I felt such jealousy about the girl. I couldn't even speak, when I'd been chatting and friendly 30 seconds prior. What a massive change! and for what? Seeing a girl leaving somewhere with a guy? Were they headed to class? Was she dropping him off? Is she bringing him back to her place because he's dating her roommate? I have no idea.

But my mind leapt to the worst of all reasons. The most painful of all realizations. The bitterest of all draughts. They were a couple. My eyes got wider. I'd missed my chance. All that preparation for nothing because they were a couple. Shallower breathing and microscopically parted mouth. All the times I talked to her and built up a relationship don't matter because she's now with him.

How could he! One of my own friends stabs me when I stepped away! I desire to run up and rip them apart, about how it's not going to be this way because I'm the one! This chance is my chance. Not yours.

Then it all ebbs away. My Reason tries to pick up the shattered pieces of the theater torn apart by my Passion. Pointing out the flaws. Urging restraint. Counting to ten.

Facing the facts.

If I never made my intentions known, who then to blame? Myself alone, when my courage falters every and each time the moment rose. The blame is not hers nor his. What have they done but act as two people do, in such an intimate business: without reference to others.

Who dares to fault that? Only the ones tortured by their own frozen lives, who cry out when the cup of life is taken from them though they never raised a hand to it. And what are the cries of those kinds of people other than the whispers of leaves that have already let go of the tree and are blown along the ground to the opposite horizon?

Fate need not concern itself with the lamentations of those who want everything and risk nothing.