I want to write something beautiful and heartbreaking.
I want to reach into my chest and pull out the bloody shards of glass inside, translate them into words for other people to carve with. That is what I do. I am a glassmaker. I am a player of fire. But when I reach inside to pull out the things beautiful in their danger, there is nothing. There is not darkness. There is not light. There is not a hole where my heart should be, there is nothing poetic. There is nothing at all. I can't even reach inside to search for what has always been there. If I could count on nothing, I could count on my dripping mess of a heart. The one I not only wore on my sleeve, but held in my palm, offering it to whoever needed a piece.
Now I can't even offer it to myself.
I can't lay it out on these pages to mend and fix.
I thought that I was dreaming when you said you loved me. The start of nothing. The nothingness that folds around me now. I've been dreaming for so long I forgot what it feels like to be awake. I forgot what it feels like to throw up by myself, to hold myself up by my stomach and force one foot in front of the other. We'll never be those kids again. It's not the same. The universe has been preparing me for this, for the aloneness of a locked up heart. I wonder if anyone will love me anymore? Since there is so much less to love.
I thought growing up meant not holding back. Now I know it means holding as much as you can, as close as you can, and praying that is enough. I've cut my torso in half and let myself bleed out thinking that was the way this must be done, that was the way I was supposed to love and be loved. Now I know.
I can no longer write things beautiful and heartbreaking. I can no longer speak things beautiful and heartbreaking. They will have to learn to love me for different reasons, or not at all, and since I am no longer capable of loving back, I will not blame them if they choose to leave. And when they ask me what happened, I will tell them.
I died the last day of June.
I woke up.
