Nursing a Broken Heart

Source: Property of Stormberry

Such a roller coaster of emotions in short two weeks. I feel now like I'll never take off again this bracelet, this one charm that represents him. I've been sad and crying and reliving time and again snipets of our last three meetings, but I'm still not strong enough to write them down in my journal, where the details of it all would be penned in with the blood of my spirit mingled into the ink flowing down the feeder and the nib of my pen.

The whole thing puzzles me greatly for I was already preparing to this. I knew the end was close, this cycle of our on-and-off acquaintance was reaching an end and a new era of long calm and emotional slumber was approaching. We can never stay together for too long, as if our emotions - whatever shape they take - could burn so hard they would easily engulf the world in flames. At least this time, the predominant sentiment was one of love, and not like in the past, where it was the blinding hate in my heart what had thrown the yellowish light upon our road.

We sink into the darkness and coolness of a world without each other. We have both done that in the past, with more or less success. I have a hard time letting go, and I can feel my bony, frozen fingers cracking, opening and trying to clutch into his strong wrist, for one last word. But my cold corpse is sinking deeper and deeper in to the underworld where I belong, where I am ruler,  undefeated and unchallenged. I have to let him go, I can't drag him down here, where I flourish and he withers, as much as I could not survive in his world.

Our last meeting was the longest and the most beautiful of them all. We talked long, shared our hearts, heard each other and held each other. Hugs flew freely each time they were needed, and smiles were free as well, marvelling in the miracle of having found each other. We talked economics and fell asleep like children, one next to the other, on a narrow bed, reading "The Return of Depression Economics" by Paul Krugman.

"Who else can I do this with?", he asked me, mirroring so perfectly what I myself was feeling.

No one else. That was the sad answer, wrapped in each other's arms, my head against his strong shoulder, in the dark, on the very night we knew we had finally ran out of time, and come the day, we will have to say good-bye.

We slept, but we didn't sleep together. Still in the morning we teased each other with that. "Hey, I can finally say we slept together". I laughed. "Watch out about that, child. You've slept with a witch".

Long hours rolled in bed, dreading getting up because they I would have to go home. Yet we've found the way to stretch those hours, steal one more, and one more until it was evident I had to pack up and leave. I had showed him my bow and my arrows, and had stringed it for him to see, to hold, to feel its power as its string is drawn against the nose and under the chin. We picked up dinner in my car, and he loved driving it. I told him their name and he not only accepted it, but gave it a petname of his own: "Nat".

He taught me to drink whiskey that night, and though I was still good enough to drive, he insisted I should stay. I didn't put much resistence either. I did want as many memories of us as I could collect.

We had lunch next day, driving his car, speeding some so that the rumble of the engine would crawl up my legs, and break on the reef of my upper lip. His car is a thing of beauty.

Those 22 hours were an intense experience, and he himself said a lifetime of closeness and friendship were crammed into them. A whole life was lived in them.

With love high in our hearts, we said good-bye, we let go. We walked away. And I've been crying since then.