Walls.

Let's break down some walls.

You're sitting in a cafe, alone, going over some editing work you agreed to take on, without much forethought. Just more work. As if you didn't do enough at work already.

Soft music in French, one that echoes into your eardrums, brings you to a temporary Nirvana, where you're floating on music notes and scales. You watch as the treble clefs float by. You don't understand a word that's being sung, but it feels nice, down to your hair follicles, the way heat does after a long walk in the snow. Helps erase the tension that's settled permanently into your shoulders. Even the Daoist masseuse commented on the chi-blockage resting in the pressure points there and in your upper back. You could only smile at her sheepishly and say that it was an occupational hazard.

A group laughing in a chorus of farm animal guffaws snaps you out of your Nirvana, and you observe them for a while. They were Asian--of course they were; what were you expecting in Asia?--young Asian men, perhaps in their late twenties. You could never tell with Asians. Being one, born in the West, you constantly get asked if you were ten years younger than you actually were, despite wearing a miniskirt and tubetop. Now that you've returned to your roots, you realize that you couldn't tell their ages either. Not that it mattered.

You are single, employed, independent, financially-secure, and don't need no man to fuck everything up. At least that's what you tell your girlfriends back home. Who needs a man when you've got everything you need?

But humans are hardly ever that simple.

Let's break down some walls.

You wonder, as you continue to watch these boys from the corner of your eye, why and when you changed your perspective on true love.

Little girls were taught, by way of romantic Disney adaptations of fairy tales, that there is nothing better for a woman than to find that Prince on a white horse who'd whisk her away from some unfortunate life calamity and give her her happy ever after. You were no different. In fact, that's all you could think about during hours of math and history (what's the point of history anyway? You were taught Columbus discovered America, only to have your middle school teachers tell you what a dick he was, and still continue to celebrate his honor with Columbus Day). You wanted to be Belle, Aurora, Ariel, to be beautiful and have that special person to reach out, confirm to you that you were, indeed, beautiful, and that they'll give you the love you feel is lacking from your world.

You didn't realize--stuck in your fairy tale fantasies--your parents' marriage falling into a dark place filled with nights of frightful hallucinations. Your mother fucking random men--bringing you along on the pretense that she was going to meet an uncle, and baby, stay in the living room. You didn't understand why you went to see that uncle so often, when Daddy was at home, sleeping, because he had been working overtime.

Don't call him your father!

After Daddy found out, your mother was a smoking wreck; constantly shrouded in smoke. She smoked--for stress, she said--and it choked you. Her guilt was laced in the smoke, and it found revenge in your lungs. You felt it seeping into your skin, into your hair, into the deep weaves of the fabric of your clothes. You went to school with guilt laced into your smile, your eyes, and the deep grooves of pencil on paper. Her guilt became yours. You soaked up all the guilt, and she remained stubborn--I don't know what you're talking about! You're paranoid!--and passive. It didn't affect her. She continued to see that uncle, that uncle with the gun hidden in the Christmas sweaters in the closet of the master bedroom. She told you to keep it a secret as she stuck it in her purse. You kept it. Because you loved her. Because you thought she loved you.

Months later, she shot herself.

Even then, you held onto the idea that is was the life calamity your Prince would save you from. You waited through adolescence, making up imaginary friends to keep company in that big, dark house alone; through puberty, pushing those imaginary friends away in efforts to be normal; through the first few years of college because you were convinced that you'll turn into a beautiful swan. You buried yourself in books and writing little romance stories to keep the hope alive.

And one day, you met him. Sitting across the table from you in some theater class or other. They warn you about this kind of man--especially this kind of man majoring in theater--but fairy tales don't, and you figured that you couldn't be that unlucky to run into a villain so early on in your story. It's still early, you told yourself.

Little did you know, villains are far more common than Princes.

He was your first. It was--looking back on it--passionate, frenzied, and dammit, you had no idea what the fuck you were doing. All you knew, staring wide-eyed at your calendar, was that your period was late, and he was nowhere to be found.

God fucking dammit.

He told you to abort. But you felt strongly against abortion. If others chose that road, good for them, but you couldn't. You wouldn't.

He called you stupid, called your beliefs stupid, and walked out of the door. Just like that. Simple, clean, and guilt-free.

He'd tell you he'd regret losing you later. That losing you taught him a lot about love. But by then, you knew they meant nothing, and gave him the middle finger.

You left the country when you graduated.

The relationship you had after Pretty Boy and during which you decided you were leaving the country was significant to you, but it hurt too much to dwell on.

He broke up with you. He'll never tell you why.

In your dreams, days before the break up, he was sleeping with the female friend that gave you dirty looks whenever you were together. You felt sorry for her, but now you hated her. In a cloud of bitterness, you hoped the two assholes were happy together.

In the rebound stage, the last stage before recovery, you--without admitting to it until now, two years later--fell in love with a boy several years younger. You hated how he wore a suit, but couldn't own up to his responsibilities You hated those sideburns he grew into muttonchops. You hated his arrogance. You hated his foul mouth. You especially hated his blatant disrespect to women. But you loved the way he held you tightly at night. Made sure you ate when you were busy with work. And he never smoked in front of you because you told him how much you hated it.

Walls up.

The boys at the table stand, laughing heartily, and leave the cafe. None of them caught your eye. The music can no longer soothe the prickling at your chest.

The job you have now is unfulfilling. You feel overworked, under-appreciated, and it gets in the way of your passion and dreams. This is only temporary, the way fairy tales and stories are only temporary. The way Life is temporary. The way happily ever after is temporary--shrouded in guilt, lies, mistakes, and smoke. You wonder how the princesses fared in a royal, domestic life, when they sang and dreamed of adventure and love.

You smile. Perhaps they were envious of you, your freedom, and your independence. They were reading your stories and dreaming of travels and comfortable cafes.

You saw him again last year. He took out a cigarette and lit it in front of you as if he were a grown man. And he didn't give a fuck.