Student Writing: I'm allergic to chocolates and roses by Trinity Gai (Year 11)

I'm allergic to chocolates and roses. I always have been. The mere idea of Valentine’s; the thought of love itself—it disgusts me. From a young age, I never understood why people have this sort of attraction, this obsession, with another being. Why? I ask. Why dedicate yourself to something so fragile, yet so temporary?
I used to laugh at the ones who held hands in the streets and the ones who whispered promises they couldn't possibly keep. "Forever," they said, as if the world hadn't proven time and time again that forever is nothing but a cruel lie. I swore I’d never be one of them. And for the longest time, I wasn’t.
Then, I met her.

She wasn’t extraordinary. Not in the way books and movies paint their protagonists—she didn’t have golden hair that shimmered in the sun and the piercing eyes that burned through souls—there was something else about her. A quiet kind of gravity, a pull I couldn’t explain. I told myself it was nothing. Merely a passing interest. Just a fleeting thought.
But fleeting thoughts don’t carve themselves into your bones.
I started seeing her everywhere. I memorized the way she moved, the rhythm of her speech and the way her fingers curled around the edge of a book. I learned what made her laugh, what made her pause and what made her sigh, as if the weight of the world was pressed against her chest. I told myself I was simply observant. Nothing more.
And yet, when she wasn’t there, I searched. My eyes traced every crowd while my body tensed at the sound of her voice. The world without her felt dull, colorless and suffocating. I hated it. I hated her. I hated that she made me feel this way.
Love was supposed to be temporary. Weak. A fleeting spark destined to die out. I had always believed this. But this new emotion was fire in my veins—a hunger that would never be satisfied. I needed her, not in the way that lovers need each other, but in the way the sea needs the moon—desperate and unrelenting—dragging itself to the shore just to be close.
And then she left…
It was inevitable, wasn’t it? People leave. That’s what they do. That’s what I had always known and what I had always sworn to avoid. But I couldn’t let go. Not anymore.
She is everywhere. In the spaces she no longer occupies, in the air I breathe and in the silence that stretches between my thoughts. I see her in strangers and in the shadows. I see her in the way the world moves—without her. It is wrong. It is unbearable.
They call this love. They say it’s beautiful.
What a lie.

Love is not chocolates and roses. It is not sweet, nor is it soft. It has jagged edges and empty spaces. It is learning the shape of someone’s existence, only to be left tracing ghosts in the air where they once stood.
And yet—despite everything, despite knowing how it ends, despite this hollow ache she left behind, I would still do it all over again.
Maybe I’m not just allergic to chocolates and roses.

Maybe I was never meant for love at all.