The Language of Heartache

Our Grammatical Error

We started in the middle of the page-or, at least, we started in the middle of my page because we are two completely different books. I never really understood that until now, I suppose, because I assumed you were just a character in my story-an utterly breathtaking and awe-inspiring and love-demanding character, but a character nonetheless-and had managed to creep your way into the middle of a page in my book. I had also assumed that you were there to stay for the rest of the story, but we both know how wrong I was now.

I think we also started in the middle of a sentence, what with your creeping into the middle of my page and into my story, though I have no way of knowing if you crept into the middle of my story because I don't know how it ends, no matter how much I wish I did or how much I thought I did. Perhaps you crept into the middle of my sentence, specifically, while I was talking, but there's no way of knowing for sure because we can't go back and read what's been written, only remembering, even though we want to go back and rewrite it so badly because what's been written wasn't what we wanted, to fix the story with its plot holes and plot twists and missing characters and missing points, but we can't. We just can't, and I should know because I am the master of just being unable to. I am unable to, just as how I was unable to correctly assume how long our story arc would last. Forever doesn't mean forever like we want it to, right?

The only thing is, is that it does. Forever does mean forever because I will forever remember you, forever love you, forever miss you. Forever just doesn't mean forever when we say it, when we insist we can make it work. Forever means forever when we don't want it to. I will forever wish you would creep back into my story like you did before, but you've already ended my chapter in your book, haven't you? I only wish that I knew how long of a chapter I was, to see how much of an impact I actually made on your story. I want to know, although I was probably only a sentence, maybe only a part of a sentence even, because our beginning and middle and end happened all too quickly even though it lasted forever-forever to me, at the very least.

Now that I think about it, the probability that we started in the middle of my story, in the middle of my page, in the middle of my sentence, is very high because it was always middles for you. You always liked the middle of class, the middle of the restaurant, the middle of the theater, and what felt like the middle of my story, and perhaps that was because you liked the center-of gravity, of excellence, of attention, and-again-of my story. However, the one middle-the one center-that you apparently didn't like was the middle of our story-of us-because you sped through it like you'd speed through the beginnings of those books you claimed to love and the ends of the books you claimed to also hate. In the end, I've realized, you sped through our entire story while I was still stuck in the exposition, trying to fill in the gaps before you crept in. In the end, I realized that it comes all too soon.

Perhaps we'll meet again. After all, those who have gone ahead tend to return to the ones who have stayed behind in stories, don't they? It creates conflict and makes room for resolution. However, I know that, almost as much as you loved middles, you hated second beginnings. The past is in the past, as you would always insist, and there's no good in reviving what is dead, never mind how alive it still feels. Bury it and ignore that small and silent heartbeat because it's not there, it's an illusion, it's dead and gone, and nothing you do will help that. Our story is dead and gone, and nothing we do will help that.

Somehow, I keep-no, continue to break your rule. I don't want to say "keep" because that implies that I still have it, that I still have you, and I cannot-I refuse to-lie to myself when I know that it is not true. You might say that this little hope of mine-that you'd creep back into the middle of my book, of my page, of my sentence, that another story arc of ours would begin again-is false, not true, dead, gone, but I say that I don't know that it's not true for sure-no matter how much I know that it's not true-and that I'm not lying because I really don't know. I suppose it's the same way that I don't know how I'm going to die although I do know that I will die, but if I don't know how, then I don't know if. You'd say my logic is incorrect, flawed, illogical, but I'd return with the fact that you are illogical, that your entire existence is illogical.

Yet I know that despite all of your illogic, I will still hold onto that still, small hope that you'd creep back into my story, onto my page, into my sentence. I've left room for you to do that, and I think you might actually like this second beginning, in a way. I know it's grammatically incorrect to leave it like this-you were always the politically correct one while I was the grammatically correct one-but I've decided to make an exception for you, and you only. You see, it's almost a second beginning, but not quite, because it's not truly a new sentence. Here's to you creeping back into the middle of my story, the middle of my page, the middle of my sentence, and creeping back to stay;