How Our Hearts Break

by L.K. Reid

Sadness came in waves. It came out of nowhere and tapped you on your shoulder like an old, childhood friend whom you hadn’t seen in years, and just like that, all those memories you’d tried to forget hit you in your chest, knocking the breath out of you. Some days, it was easier dealing with an avalanche of emotions it brought, but on the others, it hurt like an open cut, and you would start bleeding all over again. That was the moment where you realize that you never truly healed, but that you were fooling yourself, trying to feel better, even if just for a moment.

What about words spoken and unspoken, the promises, the future we dreamed of? What about the small touches, hugs and kisses on your cheeks? How was I supposed to forget it all when he still lived in here, in me, in my chest, in every poem I wrote, in every new thing I did that I wanted to tell him about?

Funny how these things work. You never know when the last time that the person you loved more than most other people in your life would become a stranger.

Sometimes when you love somebody, you decide to turn a blind eye to all those bad attributes they had, because the good ones were the only ones you cared about. I guess that I never really knew him at all.

I made it seem like I didn’t want to forgive him, but the truth was that I forgave him a long time ago. I just couldn’t go back to what we used to be, because then I wouldn’t be able to do everything I wanted to do.

I needed to train my mind and my heart to forget the fantasy I created in my head. I had to cleanse my system of him, and having him here, everywhere, was not helping.

Wasn’t love just that? A habit.

When you get used to the person, when your days and your nights were filled with them, you don’t really know how to rid yourself of all those expectations and all those things you wished you had.

My constant companions for the last three months were the tears I usually let out at night, when nobody else was there to see me breaking apart.