My CD collection is ruined.

My stereo played a song the other day.

I skipped the song. I skipped it as fast as I could. Because I can't listen to that song anymore. For you see, it's one of ours.

It was one of ours. Was.

That song doesn't belong to us anymore.

It belongs to two kids who were too in love with the concept of love. Two kids with immeasurable emotion and only an iota of common sense between them. Two kids that, although they no longer exist, will be linked forever by lyrics that a total stranger wrote.

Two kids that said their love was forever. And they were right. But love exists not as they thought- in their hearts and minds. No. Their love existed weaved between guitar strums and drum beats, between cheap sheets and between home towns.

And that love from long ago was now bursting from my present-day stereo. Because another song that I had no right to hear had started playing.

Skip. Another song.

Skip. Skip. Memories now flooded the air around me.

The entire CD was haunted.

I couldn't help but wonder if my stereo was deliberately torturing me. Trying to drown me as I flailed around in my mind. Good memories. Great memories. And tragic memories.

Memories that, thankfully, I am allowed to have even if the music never was mine to keep.