19 years,
4 boys,
2 girls,
Heartache after heartache,
The process doesn’t change,
It doesn’t become less demanding with age,
If anything, it becomes only more methodical,
In the way that a surgeon analyzes and studies his procedure before operating within a breathing, organic creature,
Or how a jazz bassist finger plucks melancholic yet beautiful riffs made of memorized scales,
With practice, I have learned something of a system to heart break, and interestingly enough it always starts with me, it never starts with you,
5pm. You don’t break up with me, I always break up with you. I lay in bed for hours, struggling to match up the phrases “meant to be” and “not this time” in ways that are gracious and kind.
7pm. I communicate my best self to you, I tell you I love you and oh, the potential I saw. I say everything I need to say, it's a courtesy to you and a necessity to me. You’re cold to me, I’m still hot for you; it burns me up inside until I choke on my “maybe some days” and “what ifs”. You’ll find someone new.
8pm. I can’t move my legs and my stomach is weak, my heart fails within me and my eyes are so meek. I search for solitude, this is the moment when the only thing I know how to do is follow my feet.
I retreat to the streets.
9pm. This is the second hardest part. Let the pain spread and seep into every vein. In the words of John Greene, it demands to be felt. I debate myself that no one should feel such pleasure from love without knowing the searing anguish of loss.
10pm. I cry out to God and weep into my friend’s teeshirt as thunder crackles around us. If you don’t let it out, you won’t let it go. My ribs snap open from explosions of emotions.
12am. Feverishly angry, unhinged with pride; I will foolishly convince myself that you meant nothing to me, though in this moment i am anything but dispassionate. Accusations, assumptions, confrontations. Gain perspective, but only the kind that convinces me of myself. Compartmentalize it.
2am. I’ll distract myself with something, anything to pass the time. I’ll go out at night, a little excitement, a little bit of drugs, a lot of adrenaline, might just set my brain chemistry balanced and my crooked jaw straight.
5am. I’ll come home, satisfied with myself. Crawl back into my bed where I began the night and think, oh if only you could see me now, i have definitely won.
6am. This is the hardest part. The sun rises along with my guilt and inhibitions. I could NEVER say those things to you during the day that I spewed out like kerosene during the night.
I want to call you baby, tell you I’m sorry, but I’ve lost that right.
So I will combust from my own words and actions, set fire to my excuses and torch down my pride.
I want to whisper good morning to you, because I’ve learned the mornings are made to fix things, to start fresh, and become new.
My father had an anthem for me that rung “Holly, you’re not a bad person, you just make bad decisions. You can always try again in the morning.”
Well, it is the morning and I want so bad to try again.
In how many different languages can i try to explain that I don’t know how to give it up,
Or how to let someone go that was never mine to begin with?
I’ll just replay you walking through the invisible door in my mind until I take the hint.
Then I’ll sleep the day away so I can wake up, sobered up, numbed up, a few hours later.
Remind myself that my mother taught me to allow only one night for despair and tantrums.
She says life goes on and so should I, she couldn’t bear to see me defeated or crushed.
So I’ll force myself out of bed, shower, shake it off, lock it up.
I’ll move on because love is not without pain, life is not without burden, courage is not without fear,
And people are always worth taking chances on, even though the last chance I took never healed.
I know that there will be other nights when I think about 4 boys and 2 girls,
But those times, I’ll drift to sleep without saying goodnight, and have forgotten about it before the break of morning light.