The Breakup

What happens when you’ve run out of words? When everything you could have said was said and everything you could’ve done was done and all that’s left is nothing but silence and memories as you stand in front of each other, in an empty room?

The good times locked away in a picture on a phone and empty tomorrows all around. You sigh and she smiles. You both apologize for things never said and talk about days filled with love that was meant to last forever. Both broken, both shattered, both confused; and neither able to understand a world that spins without the other.

She touches your hand and you take hers. She looks down and loses a tear, you wipe it away. She closes her eyes and you kiss her forehead. She pulls at your jacket and you take her in your arms and as she squeezes tighter than ever before – sobbing into your chest - you breathe in and fill your mind with the smell of her hair one last time. After all those years, all those adventures, all those sleepless nights, arguments in the kitchen, naps in the rain, you’re just two strangers standing in a room, saying goodbye.

What happened? Where did it all go wrong? Neither knows and maybe you never will. Or maybe deep down you do know but you can’t bring yourself to admit it.

Eventually she leaves and you tell yourself it’s for the best, but your apartment feels cold. The books are lonely when she isn’t reading them. The cushions are hard when she isn’t there to hold them tight. The couch isn’t comfortable without her wrapped around you and the shows aren’t as funny when she’s not around to interrupt. If it’s for the best then why did she take everything that made you happy with her? If it’s for the best then why do you cry?

But time passes, and eventually, even the books begin to forget.

-

#breakup #poetry #writer #literature #love #poem #nonfiction