Where I Went

Hurt. Loss. Fear. Incomprehension. Insomnia. Anger. Confusion. Denial. Pain. Hopelessness. Arrogance. Paranoia. Apprehension. Terror. Abuse. Sick.

Heartbreak is one of the defining events in a person's life. If you've never felt your heart break, the sickening emptiness that accompanies it, then you've never truly been tested. It's the only way of knowing that a breaking heart is not a metaphor, its not a piece of romantic imagery to describe an otherwise ambiguous emotion. No, it's quite literally the feeling of your heart, that very organ in your chest, splitting apart, bleeding out into your open body. It breaks. It absolutely breaks. It breaks and you become so weak you can't stand. You can't think. You can't breathe.

I blacked out. When I woke up she was holding me. My head was resting in her lap and her hands were gently placed on my shoulders. I had been crying heavily. I found my face sticky with tears and mucus. "Oh God," I said in horror and pulled my face away from her. I asked her for some tissues, she got up off the floor and left the room to get some. When she returned I couldn't look at her for shame. I wiped my face clean but still I was too embarassed. She couldn't look at me either. For pity or shame, I don't know. I told her I needed to go, she said to wait. My legs were shaking and would never have held me upright. My hands were shaking. My chest hurt, my heart broken.

It will define you for a long time. What happened. How you dealt with it. If you grew or shrunk away from it in fear. It helps define the person you become. Heart break is a terrible, terrible thing. It makes you feel like your life is no longer worth living. After all, what good is a life with no heart?

I got in the car and I locked the doors. I looked up but no one was in the window. No one looked out for one last glimpse. I locked the doors again. Then just to be safe I locked them again. And another seven times. My hands shook and I couldn't see, but I had to leave. When I reached the red light at Leonard I looked down and pressed the button again. The doors made that familiar *thnk* sound when you try to lock them and they're already locked. I closed my eyes. I pressed it another nine times.

You feel lost. Hopeless, angry and spiteful, but terribly sad. And quite alone. You hate them all. If you hate them then it can all make sense. If they're your friends then you know that there's a kind of betrayal at work and it hurts even worse. So you hate them. You hate them and you loathe yourself. All humanity is gone. We are merely animals, all rational thought is merely imagined, a facade. We live by emotion and physical response. You don't want to think. So you don't.

Its three in the morning. I know I won't be sleeping again tonight. Outside, snow continues to fall, silently accumulating on our deck chairs. A thin, pointless blanket. Ephemeral and weak. I hate it. Through the window I can feel the cold press against me. Looking out through the glass, my breath fogs before my eyes. With a shaking finger, I rub clear two small dots and a U. Smile. I return to my room and open another bottle of wine. Hopefully tomorrow I won't wake up.

But we grow. Nothing fades away completely but it does get a little grayer around the edges. At first you think you'll never find another one. That there is no other. But then you go numb. You say, "Fuck it." She wasn't so special. You were just stupid enough to think that you meant something to her. Fuck that. You'll find someone else. And if not, who cares?

"Let it die."
"What?"
"I said 'Let it die'", she chirped at me.
"Shut up, you're just a fucking bird." She ruffled her little yellow feathers angrily and flew off.

How do we grow? In fits and spurts, with incredible effort and terrible pain. Our bones crack open, shift, expand, and reform in new, awkward positions. Our skin is bruised, bloodied until, with time, it calluses and reforms stronger, rougher. And this is how we grow. It's the price we pay, the blood we spill, the pain we endure. In this way we never stop growing. We grow until we die. And only then are we done. I think.

"It has been said, 'time heals all wounds.' I do not agree. The wounds remain. In time, the mind, protecting its sanity, covers them with scar tissue and the pain lessens. But it is never gone."