Heartbreak and Other Clichés

Hello!

It's been a very long time since I've written anything that could possible classify as "writing", and to change that, I have decided to do a series on heartbreak. It is apparently the easiest thing to write about, and I hope it will act as a gateway to more frequent writing. I'll start with reposting a slightly edited version of something I wrote recently for this platform that lets you write open letters about your emotions, real or fictional.


To: The One Who Gave Up

Your shoulder was of the perfect height. I know I said your hands were my favourite part of you, but I was wrong- it’s been your shoulders, always. You were too tall for us to fit together perfectly, the length of our torsos a bar to our experimentation. For the perfect hug, I had to stand on a stair. Your hands were so large they made even my giants feel insignificant, feel so deliciously small for perhaps the first time in my adult life. Your lush hair had dandruff; your lips were too pouty for mine to feel secure in their stern thinness; your feet were the most calloused I have ever seen. Your arms, your hands around me, on me, on my waist, in my hair; our fingers wrapped around each other like we couldn’t ever possibly get close enough- that was heaven, yes, but your shoulders- your shoulders were perfect. To lean on when I was sad and lonely and couldn’t, wouldn’t, hold myself up. To melt into just because I wanted to, because  they were mine and I could, because you said you were mine, god damn you, you said you were mine. For a year and a month and four days, you were mine. To nestle against in the cold, into the love in the heart I was sure, so sure, so naively certain, was strong enough. Because you said we’d try. Because I believed you. Because if mine was, why couldn’t yours be?

I don’t know when I realized you’d given up. Was it the moment you told me – I’m too scared, I can’t, we should end things– or was it in the months before, when we stopped being anything but the bare bones of a relationship, no substance, just two people going through the motions of acting like they were in love? Was it when I forgot you so much that my neck strained with how much it had to tilt to look up at you, forgot what had once become second nature? Was it when we ran out of things to say to each other, because you were never there, and so much had happened, so much kept happening, but you were never there, until my brain forgot you mattered enough to share things with, until I drew a perfect blank those rare occasions when I did see your face? Was it when I tried anyway, when I told you I was probably depressed and you said okay, let’s head back, like that was an interesting anecdote to end our meeting with? Or had you always, in some part of you, given up on us, every set of holidays, every time I told myself I was overreacting, every time I made your excuses for you – he’s busy, he’s tired, he’ll text back eventually, he means well, he loves you,  he’ll be here tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow.

Did you know I always wanted my first open letter to be something fun and quirky; never about a guy? That I never wanted someone whose actions I had to defend and justify and rationalize and excuse? That I wanted someone who felt about me, the way I felt about you? Did you know, when you promised me a future, when you promised me we’d try, that family and age and time and distance wouldn’t get in our way- did you know then, how easy it would be for you to change your mind? To say- yes, I know I said that, but now that I’m actually here, it turns out I’m too scared. Did you know that you would always, always choose yourself over us, choose to cut your losses, because god forbid that you commit to anything more than an indifferent might as well? Did you know, when you were being infuriated by my use of the shrug emoji, that you would personify it in our relationship? Hey, so what about the future? – ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. 

But I believed you anyway. When you said you loved me, I believed you. When you said we didn’t have an expiry date, I believed you. When you said we would try, I fucking believed you. For months, you fed me lies, and I don’t care if you believed them then too, because I believed you and you lied. You were different, so different with me; so considerate, when you were there; so warm; so vulnerable, that I believed you weren’t the jackass they all thought you were. That you were more. That you were mine. That you always would be. That you’d at least try, that you meant what you were saying. That only some insurmountable, unimaginable obstacle would keep me from being yours, and you from being mine.

I suppose I just never imagined that obstacle would be you.

I suppose I was a fool, for not recognizing the problem when even you told me how hollow your apologies sounded when they were spoken for the same mistake for the fifth time. A fool, for believing you’d put us before you, when every little inconvenience had you putting me in second place. A fool, for believing the sweet nothings you so intensely whispered in your sweet, accented voice into my silly little ears. A fool, for letting you swallow me up, a fool for believing you’d been swallowed up too. A fool, for going back repeatedly and smiling over the good times; a fool for ignoring all the bad signs. A fool, for thinking you knew what you meant when you said you loved me- when it should’ve been clear, from the very first time, when you said it and shattered us in the same breath, it should’ve been clear as crystal that you had no idea what you were talking about.

A fool, because I believed what you said, but it turns out you never did.

I’m trying not to do that anymore, trying not to be a fool anymore. To be rational– so strange, that feels, like trying on an alien outfit. To feel the future stretch out without it being bound to you- to forget that I wanted it bound with you, uncertain and terrifying and unfathomably difficult, but with you. I’m trying to write again, because I put you over that as well, because I was so happy wrapped up in you that I had no sad poems to write anymore. I’m trying to remember what it feels like to be a whole in myself again.

My friends offer me their long-distance shoulders. They offer me blankets and hugs and love and listening ears and all the things you stopped giving me a while ago. And I’m trying. But how do I lean into someone who isn’t you? How do I fit my head into the crook of a shoulder which will never be tall enough? How do I forget you?

~Sam