Of my life

“You are the love of my life.”

 When I heard those words I wanted it to be true with all my heart. I felt that we would be together forever, and nothing would be able to tear us apart. I saw, but did not pay attention to, the serious look on your beautiful face, nor did I hear the matter of fact way you spoke the words. These things were lost to me. I knew we were meant to be, without a doubt. Until you said there was someone else.

 Then the words became what they sounded like. It was a goodbye, the sweetest way to say goodbye you could think of. You didn’t say those words to bring us closer together, you said them as a final message of farewell. It was shorter than “I love you, but we can’t see each other anymore.” Deeper than “I don’t want to see you anymore.” Softer than “I’ve found someone else.” But it meant all those things.

 For a while, I thought I’d lost my heart completely, because I had given it all at those words, and I thought I had been given a piece of your heart as well. It felt like I was dying as you told me of this other person. Deep inside, where only you have been, where my heart used to be, I stood at my center and screamed. Great racking sobs shook my mind and soul, even as I reassured you that it was ok, that I would be alright. I clenched the piece of heart in my hand like a life line, afraid it would disappear and go back to you.

 It didn’t, of course, because it wasn’t a piece of your heart. It was a piece of mine. The goodbye hidden in your words cracked my heart and sent this small shard flying back to me. I held it, staring at it as it pulsed weakly. I could feel all of the pain and the loss pouring out of it as it reached out for the love that was not there, for the rest of it that was gone forever. I raised it up, determined to throw it down with enough force to destroy it, and me, forever. But I could not. As I stood, ready to end it, the shard spoke one simple phrase.

“You are the love of my life.”

It was calling out to you, using the same words you used to break it. They rang through me like the tolling of a thousand bells, reverberating off of every memory, every thought. In the dark emptiness where my heart used to belong I created a pedestal, a stone column stopping at waist height. I set the shard there, letting the pulsing light turning the darkness to a deep, painful red. I set myself there, my true self, with all my emotions, all my hopes and dreams. I set myself against the pedestal, with one hand on the shard, and then I began to build. Walls, barriers, a few at first, then more as every time we spoke the shard would shine brightly and burn fiercely at the sound of your voice, hope would be given and then taken away without remorse, and then the pain would flow from it once more. I would feel it all, my true self holding on for dear life.

 The walls continue to go up, and still you get through. I’ve blocked my true self away from everything, to protect me from my all knowing mind. The mind that knew how things are going with you before I even ask, the mind that picked at every memory searching for the harsh truth, before I locked them away in my true self. It is too late of course, the seeds are there. The mind has enough information to ask the worst questions. Did you ever love me? Is it possible that you love me still? What does he have that I do not? Why do you choose him again and again over me, even in friendship? More and more questions pop up every minute, every day. Questions I dare not ask, and answers that I’m afraid I already know. There is one thing I allow myself, more because I cannot stop it than because I want it. It’s a simple thing, but it means so much to me. I hear it through the walls, feel it in every part of me. It’s a part of everything I do, and everything I feel. It’s true, there is no goodbye in it, no hidden agenda. It is simply that you are the love of my life.