audio heartbreak

And so it goes.

My head buried in your chest, the darkness pressing up against us. No one is watching this, a moment where our truest feelings come tumbling out, reluctantly and with sorrow etched deep into every sad and beautiful detail. I supposed we were star-crossed from the start, but isn't that what made it so great? There is a sharp intake of breath:

Have you ever heard a heart break?

It's nothing like the tinkling of glass hitting the floor, shards flying in every sparkling direction. It's not a crack like lightening splitting the sky. It does not sound like the slow tear of paper, old love notes being torn. It starts with the clatter of someone setting aside their pride, it sounds like the soft whispering of someone falling to their knees, pleading quietly. It sounds like the gasp of air being knocked out of someone's lungs, the whoosh of hope being lost. And all the while there has been the steady thumping acceleration of a heart thrown into panic...and then nothing. I think it must stall out as a defense mechanism or something. And last of all, and perhaps the most awful, is the sound of reluctant acceptance. The sound of air shakily being drawn into lungs that feel full of water and hurt, and the soft sound of tears, the most honest kind of crying. Like that of a child experiencing some kind of pain that they cannot understand, raw, untamed sorrow. The sound of real, true loss.

I want to drop to the floor. It is painful enough to just want to sleep for ever. And here, crying against your chest, I can hear your heart beating slow. I never thought life was fairytale. I never expected a happy ending... but I had hoped, and hope is both beautiful and incredibly damaging at the same time. A spark that could turn into a wildfire. Burning up whatever plans you thought you had. Incinerating what you thought you knew. Leaving you charred and alone, with nothing but burnt out matchsticks for company.

Slow footsteps across your hardwood floors, the last time they echo from your walls? I don't know. My heart still feels still. A deep coldness is permeating my body since leaving your apologetic arms. I cannot meet your eyes, which is enough to make my heart break all over again. That one simple fact is like ice in my heart. The doorknob creaks, and my slow decent down the front steps begins. I cannot turn around. I don't know if you are watching me go or have your face buried in your hands.I step outside into the blackness, and a light rain begins to fall.

And I know that is foolish to expect you to come running after me, to grab me and spin me around and kiss me and just ask me to please wait and be patient and that you can't bear to watch me leave like this. I know that it would be silly to wait outside in my car and hope that you would open the front door and climb into my passenger seat and say that in the distance between my camry and your living room you had some great revelation. I know you are trying to do what is right...

But nobody can help wanting that.

Nobody can help hoping that this is not the end, not the real end. That love or whatever will prevail and be enough. That through the darkness of this terrible heartbreak, the aurora borealis will light us up, and remind us of why we fell for each other to begin with. Maybe, just maybe. I know fairytales aren't real. I know that isn't how the world works.

But a heart can hope.