RAMBLINGS

For Her Broken Heart

She could hardly pin-point how they got to where they were. There were no angry words, and there were no moments of uncomfortable or awkward silences. There were no mysterious late nights, and there was no strange lipstick on his collar or hidden love letters in his pockets. Yet, there they were, carrying boxes down the hall and out to his truck, as they carefully loaded them one by one. There was nothing much to say about anything. There was nothing at all to understand where it all went wrong and how it all began. Like old friends, they said a final goodbye to each other, and as he drove away, she loitered for just a moment longer as she watched his tail lights disappear into the night.

She reluctantly walked back inside, and rushed into their bedroom. She stared at the big, lonely bed and she gazed into his now empty closet. She took his pillow and held it against her, before she walked out and laid down on her couch instead. As she had done on so many nights before, and for what felt like a hundred years, she prayed for him. She was not quite sure how her life would go on without him, and she feared her meeting with her mornings. She couldn’t even be sure that she would survive the stormy, untaught nights without him. She lays quietly as she listens to the cars that continue to mow down the streets, and she hears the friendly, habitual chatter of her neighbours. In the distance, children are squealing and dogs are barking. “It was true,” she whispered through the tears that had begun to roll carelessly from her eyes, “The world did not stop for my broken heart.”

She glanced over at the clock against the wall, and was disappointed that it had continued to tick. She  could not quite figure out how it had not lost even a second, and how perfectly set it had remained. If it had told her that it was ten minutes earlier, or five minutes later, she would know that time had felt it too, and that it had been affected by her broken heart too. She felt betrayed by her clock, and she felt annoyance for the world who was supposed to become immobile for just for a moment, while it commiserates with her broken heart. She listened to a song that was softly playing on a radio in the background. She wondered how it couldn’t sense her immense soreness. She wanted to shout out, how dare it continue playing sweet love songs. As she tried to put her scattered thoughts in place, she cried herself to sleep. 

She awoke before dawn with red and distended eyes. She was sure that she was hung-over from the effects of her broken heart. With all the strength she could gather, she turned off the radio and stumbled over to her coffee pot. She poured herself a quick cup, and as she stood staring out in front of her, she realized once more, that a cup of coffee alone, was one of the many firsts she would have to face  in her world, without him. 

For, her broken heart turned into just another number, in a world polluted with lost loves. For her broken heart, the world did not stop, and the universe refused to apologize. For her broken heart, people will not speak softer or tread gentler around her. For her broken heart, the trees will not keep their leaves in autumn, and the flowers will not continue to blossom in winter. For her broken heart, the earth would not move slightly off his axis, and the stars will not conjure up a new plan for her life, and her love lost. Just for the survival of her broken heart, he won’t be coming back, and he won’t be putting all her crushed pieces back into place.

With love,

Alice VL

Please navigate to the next page for more …