Eyes close, lips brush…time stops. Eyes open…empty room…Empty heart. Hope that echoes of the past become reality of the future. #loveburns
You are out there in the dark. Somewhere in a different place than I you stand in your kitchen cooking dinner or maybe you are sitting at your desk working. It doesn’t really matter because it is not my dinner that you are cooking and not our home that you are returning to. The life we once planned on sharing together is not the life that we have today.
I know how that sounds and I know how much you hate to hear it. We are so very similar and so very different in how we handle and and respond to some things. When the heat comes down you do all that you can to stay busy. It is easier to keep running than to focus on things that you feel like you cannot fix. But that is not me, that is not who I am.
Blame it on being male or being a dreamer. Blame it upon a desire to be your hero because you know that is part of what I have always wanted to be for you. Best friend, partner, lover and hero.Those are things to be especially proud of and I would wear that badge without regret for eternity.
We complement each other in so many ways and always have. There is a balance that is established between us, an equilibrium that works to our advantage. It is part of what makes us so formidable and not just a tragic love story that never was and never could be. I know what The Circumstances of Astrology are and I know why you said what you said.
There has never been a time or moment that you weren’t there. Only moments of ignorance and lack of awareness. You weren’t on my radar or a gleam in my eyes. Perhaps you were a dream that I never wanted to believe in. A dream because I didn’t believe that someone like you was out there.
It is funny in an odd sort of way. I can hear you telling me that you’ll never forgive me for not finding you sooner. I can hear you calling my name, asking why I am silent. I tell you that I don’t share my thoughts easily. I live in a world of silence because I choose to be silent. I tell you that I am shy and you laugh.
You don’t believe me. You don’t understand how very different you are. You don’t know how many complained about my unwillingness to share. You don’t know how very silent I can be. You don’t know because I gave you that key. You don’t know because you have always seen what others couldn’t. You don’t know because I celebrated being able to be so free and so open with someone.
But it is a two way street. When my door opened wide so did yours. I don’t share your grace. I don’t walk, I lumber. And so I lumbered on in and made myself at home. Home, that is what we were for each other. A refuge and a sanctuary that provided incredible amounts of strength. An indefatigable team who was naturally able to heal each other and who could do it still…
“So I would choose to be with you
That’s if the choice were mine to make
But you can make decisions too
And you can have this heart to breakâ€
And So it Goes– Billy Joel
*****
This was a post about heartbreak for the Write On Edge writers community. I am not sure if this hit the mark for me. I got a late start on it and never quite found the rhythm I was looking for but part of the reason I participate is for the practice. The goal is to get better and the only way to do that is to practice. Anyhoo, if you are interested in reading past prompts you can find a list below:
- Wind and Waves
- Donuts
- A Detour
- 1974
- The Day Joy Left My Life
- Preserve Your Memories
- August
- The Flying Clown
- The Kitchen
- One Slightly Used Pump For Sale
- The Song of My Heart Has Gone Silent
- Grandpa
- Five Minutes
- Endless Blue Skies
- And then the world shifted
- I Hear Music
- A Fire In The Sky
- The Telephone Call
- She Wore A Red Dress
- Song Sung Blue…And Other Colors
- When Simply Awful became Simply Wonderful
- A Mugger
- A Jealous Man
- She Was Wrong
- It Was Just Coffee
- The Mistress of Tongue
- Dancing Didn’t Make Him Charming
- An Unfulfilled Promise
- A Whiter Shade of Pale
- Soft and Smooth
- Harder Kimio
- I Am On Fire
- Time Stand Still
@AwayWeGoNancy That makes sense. Now I just need to pick the moment and run with it.
Reading over CDG’s comment, I would suggest that you choose one story and explode that moment. I, too, would love to see the moment. I do love the spell cast by the voice. Now I need to see the how to understand his why.
@CDG It is probably fair to say that it is the same voice as in the other pieces. I have found it challenging to add some of the missing details because of word constraints. But I suppose that would make them more interesting if we could flesh out more details.
I wonder, reading this, if it’s meant to be the same narrative voice that you’ve written from in the past. You plumb the emotional landscape like a journal-writer in these pieces, but I find myself looking for context and story between the lines.
You describe the inner landscape of heartbreak eloquently, I can’t help but wonder what the narrative is behind the heartache.
@skoteinia Thank you. Heartbreak is something that we all share.
@CiaoMom Relationships can be really hard, bittersweet at times.
I loved this: ‘ lumber’ the perfect word in the perfect place. And good to hear about Heartbreak from a man’s perspective…
It may not have hit the mark for you, but for me, having lived through two major heartbreaks, it made every memory of those moments come back.
@TheJackB …um….no…second guessing sucks the life out of creativity…
@staceysmotheringmoments Thank you very much, I appreciate it.
@bdorman264 Practice, practice, practice. Never have enough time to work on it.
@mryjhnsn All these questions will eventually be answered…in time. 🙂
@SocialMediaDDS Thanks Claudia, I appreciate the feedback. As an FYI I posted the next section of that other story. It is a bit long, so I am debating cutting it up into bite size pieces.
I could feel the heartbreak through the whole piece. So very sad, but well done.
Well, I will give it a vote of approval; well done. Practice makes perfect, right?
Your perspective is refreshing but I want to know… are you leaving? Did the relationship fail? Did you never get together? There seems to be so many unanswered questions that I want to know what happened. I need to know more!
I also can hear my husbands voice as I read this – we have had this conversation before we had a kid, before we were married, hell before we even decided to date and before we broke up (well he broke up with me). In the end it worked out but it was because of a conversation like this.
A definition of love….”You don’t know because you have always seen what others couldn’t. You don’t know because I celebrated being able to be so free and so open with someone.”
There is the “love ya” love and there is the “seeing yourself in the other’s eyes” kind of love. It’s the latter that creates the burn…the burn that balances precariously on that fine line between pleasure and pain.
Your story keeps me wanting more..it may not be the rhythm that you were looking for but it’s a home run for the reader.
Claudia
@galitbreen The hardest part of writing for me is usually trying to find the simplest way to express complex ideas. I thought that “Making myself at home” fit the bill but wasn’t sure if I would be the only one who read it that way.
@BruceSallan Roy is one of my favorites:
http://youtu.be/Z0pLKCxc8Rw
http://youtu.be/W_tzlNhkxVI
http://youtu.be/m5N9IHqqGcA
@dosweat There are some obvious and fundamental differences between the sexes, but overall I don’t think that we are all that different.
We all have our moments of heartbreak and doubt.
@WGB2U Thank you!
@BetsyKCross Thank you Betsy. It is just part of the fiction that I like to write.
I love the way you wrote like a letter, or like you’re talking to me.
My favorite line was the “making myself at home.” My husband uses that phrase when it comes to trust and relationships- I think it’s perfection.
Didn’t Roy Orbison do “Love Hurts?”
It’s interesting to see the topic of heartbreak from a male point of view.
But you know what? This could be straight out of my head! You’re really freaking me out because this really sounded like me! THIS is what I wish I could say to my husband all these time!
The only difference between us is I’m a woman. But those feelings and emotions you wrote up there? Same.
Visiting you from the Red Writing Hood 🙂
Beautiful, very beautiful!
Wow! Very good Jack! Could have been a journal entry.