Your Beating Heart

I Miss You

You can't remember the last time you smiled happily.

You can't remember the last time you felt happiness erupt inside of you.

You can't remember the last time you were fulfilled with happiness.

You do remember the last time you cried. It was two hours ago.

You do remember the last time you came apart at the seams. It was yesterday.

You do remember the last time you collapsed physically. It was last week.

The world you used to know had fallen apart six months ago. One hundred and eighty-three days. Four thousand three hundred and ninety-two hours.

—

You enter the same train you've taken for the last two months to get to work. You always choose the last wagon, far away from the hassle of commuters in rush hour traffic. If your preferred seat next to the window facing the engine is occupied, you keep standing next to the door on the side, which isn't used on this route.

You own a gallery downtown, but you live in a house outside of the city. It had been a mutual decision between you two, but really it had been her who needed to be able to breathe. To move closer to the city isn't something you want or can think about, but it would make your life easier. You don't like driving anymore and the car on your driveway hasn't been used for six months. You should have driven it once in a while to secure its functionality, but you couldn't bring yourself to do so. Every time you walk past the car, your chest constricts painfully and your heart clenches excruciatingly. You can't go near it, although it is probably the closest thing you have of her. Her. HER.

The thought of her makes your heart cramp tightly and you inhale deeply to try to starve off the oncoming wave of desperation and anxiety. You bite down hard on your lip and press your hands, balled up in fists onto your thighs to replace the agony in your head and heart with a different pain, a physical pain. An ache that would vanish if you stopped. You don't stop though. The discomfort of your muscles at the intruding pressure gives you a sense of comfort. It only lasts so long. Your skin gets used to the feeling and your muscles numb the sensation, and it doesn't help this time. You still feel the desperation and loneliness taking over your mind. You want to get off the train, but it isn't near any station. You anxiously let your eyes flit over steel surfaces and cushioned seats, bounce off plastic walls and damaged advertisements, until they get stuck on dark grey. Your vision zeroes in, analysing the color with all the feelings still so raw and alive, to only realise it can't be her. It can never be her again.

The disappointment of this realisation floods your body and leaves you breathless, but the dark grey is still there and you can't look away. It isn't the same color, of course it isn't, but it is a warm tint of grey and you focus on it.

Even if you want to, and you're sure you don't, You can't break the spell. It engulfs you. Any sense for time or appropriateness leaves your consciousness. You keep staring at the grey, and miraculously you feel your heartbeat slowing, your breathing deepening, even your hands unclench and you feel your body relaxing in the seat. You're baffled, as all it takes to calm yourself is a look at a pair of eyes which had not even been focused on you. The stranger's gaze, who leans against your second favorite spot on the train, is still fixed above your head. An unfamiliar person whom you haven't met before, but your body knows her. She calms you down.

She seems entirely too focused on nothing. Her forehead is furrowed deeply until her glance drops down to you. Confusion is taking over the grey-eyed's features, and you lower your head and finally break the gaze. you're not ashamed for staring, but you know you should react that way. You've learned to display every reaction expected of you to fool people into believing you're ok and normal and healthy and strong. You were far from any of them. You are broken beyond repair. You might look like the woman you were six months ago, but you were only a shadow of that you. You lost yourself the day you lost her.