I sit. Pasted to my seat. Searching his eyes for something, anything.
Please give me something.
My food is fighting a war with my heart in my throat. My heart is exhausted, once worn on my sleeve, and then given back to me by him. Shredded and ravaged by those words – his words, “I don’t think we should date anymore”.
Seven words.
Seven words that are inconsequential, frail and harmless when muttered on their own.
Seven words that he strung together to make a sullen bracelet of destruction. And how dreadfully beautiful that chain looks secured around my neck. Gasping.
That jagged piece of jewellery which he kept on him. With him. Silently guarding his tragic trinket that would eventually be introduced as the lead actor in the character assassination performance I would perform on myself. For myself.
I sit. Saturated. Bloated and empty at the same time.
My heart sighs, except it’s not my heart but an exhale of who I am. Who I once was. It comes from my gut. I can’t be releasing anxiety because that’s my best friend now.
Anxiety now takes its form in shaking me awake to sit and reminisce, collectively with depression, about every word that was transferred from my mouth to his heart. Reminding me that my fleeting words and desperate, outrageous cries must have been pulled from my vocal chords, crushed and then swept away before they were processed, translated and understood. Please understand me.
Could my words have evaporated in the sheets we shared with so many others?
Were they swallowed by the shallow mouths I allowed to roam his body or were they intercepted by the unfamiliar hands I allowed to explore my skin?
I sit. No longer able available to him.
I sit with his bracelet, permanently affixed to everything I see.
I need to stand up.