One Million Tiny Things

Shattered past

Dear Jack,
I know you won't reply and I'm not expecting you to. I can't imagine what you think when you see these words on page after page, 5 years after you wanted to hear them. I know that while they would have meant everything to you back then, today, you believe it all to be an act.  And maybe it is.

Maybe I really don't have any love for you left in me, maybe everything I'm feeling is all in my head. But, that night on New Year's Eve , when we mutually decided to break whatever we had, something inside me broke to pieces. And that's what keeps me awake at night. The fact that I have nobody to blame, nobody to scream at, nobody to plan vengeance against. I want to tell you that you're the reason my past is shattered and my best memories are in ashes, but we both know I'm as much to blame as you are.

Would you believe me if I told you I kept it, if I said I've got the locket and the photo inside it. I know we said we'd let everything go, but not that. Not our locket.
And, by God, nobody should ever be allowed to be as happy as we are in that picture. All it's ever showed me is that the higher we go, the deeper we fall. And high was an understatement when it came to us, we could touch the sky and fly between the clouds. It was that very happiness, that high, that had me questioning what life was without you in it. And I felt pathetic. I was pathetic. I always needed somebody else to lean on, somebody who'd treated all my crazy ideas and somebody that would stay with me even with all the moodswings. I get it, when we ended things, you were probably only too happy to see me walk away, you were sick and tired of me. You'd had it with how I could be annoyingly clingy one second and then as cold as an iceberg the next.

Do you remember spinning me around in Central Park. It was just you and me. It was such a lovely thing we had. Delicate but strong, simple but intricate, beautiful but in truth, we were just hiding the ugly. All the envy pressing down on it from all sides, all the questions, all the secrecy just broke it apart. And we couldn't do anything to stick it back together. Because pieces stuck with glue can't stand a chance against the unblemished original.

It wasn't one single person's fault. We're all to blame. Everytime I think of how wonderful we were together, it just makes me sad. We weren't a chick flic, we weren't a comedy, we had nothing on romance or love. All we were, was a straight out tragedy. And one so complicated, Shakespeare would have a hard time getting his head around it.

We weren't shimmering violets by a river bank, we weren't glowing stars in the night sky, to put it quite plainly, we were a boulder rolling down a rocky plain heading irreversibly straight to the ground. We inflicted damage on everything around us, even ourselves. We broke all the rules society set for us, we broke apart the walls surrounding our hearts, and all it led to was us breaking each other's hearts.

We were beautiful in a way that nothing else is, in a damaged, cracked way, we were perfect.

I still see you, every night, I only have to close my eyes to be transported to a world where we are together. Conversations by fireplaces, dances in big ballrooms, standing hand in hand watching fireworks go off. It's all out there; no more secrecy. No clandestine meetings, no fleeting glances, nothing to hide and no demons to run from.

I know that you didn't want this to end anymore than I did but life is what it is. Maybe if I'd actually told you all the feelings I kept hidden. Maybe if I'd stood by your side and fought for your place. Maybe if I was patient and planning, we could have been everything we were destined to become. They wouldn't have had anything to say to defeat us. Our walls would have been up against them and not each other.

And then I wake up, and the sun is up every morning to remind me that it's over. There's no point hanging around for a love that'll never come. And if I could, I'd forget you. I'd lock up all the memories I've got of us, I'd fling our locket out into the sea and live a life worth my time. But erasing you from my mind cuts close to impossible.

And so, I find myself trailing past the tracks, clutching the locket and wondering why I don't just take another step and end it all. And I see your face in my mind and it's all clear once more, why I live, why I wait, why I remember, it's all for the hope that you'll come back for me.

Yours forever,
Ceci