emotions

heartbreak

She was only five years old when she experienced her first heartbreak. No, it hadn't been a boy in her daycare, certainly she wasn't that mature. Rather, at five years old she saw a little bird on the side of the road, feathers matted and protruding all over, not at all as neat and composed as they should be, body and head one gallimaufry of turmoil. How gruesome of an experience for a child of that age who can't even comprehend the idea of death. She howled in her bleakness, every lasting piece of her heart shattering like the glass window her brother broke when he threw his baseball through it last summer. She couldn't grasp the concept of losing something so absolutely bewildering in just a single blow. How could something so breathtakingly alluring be put to an end in such a violent manner? She watched as its wing wavered with every passing car, jutting straight up in the air but never to fly again. 

Ten years go by, tens, maybe hundreds of heart-breaks later, sitting beside her mother in the car on the way home from school. Tears come streaming down her cheeks leaving a trail of black eyeliner and mascara which she so effortlessly applied in the early morning because by then it had become just a simple routine. She found herself no longer interested in masking her pain; not in front of anyone, because it became too difficult to prevent the tears. She understood now, sitting there in the same car with the same feeling, just how something marvelous will always come to a conclusion. Nothing great lasts forever, hardly even lasts long enough to feel the magnificence. Salty tears flavored her quivering lips, she repeated this in her head over and over as she had for the past few heart-breaks: everything bewildering is taken from you in one single blow. 

Her mother sits there, helpless and listening to the shaking and sobbing of her daughter in the seat beside her, wishing she could help this time. She's unsure of what to say, how to help, so she remains silent. She remembered all of the times her daughter's heart went out to those animals on the side of the road, she knew how much this had to hurt. Things only grew worse as the years went on. 

She watched as her daughter's wings wavered helplessly with every passing boy, never to fly again. She watched as her daughter lost her appetite, mind, strength, and heart all at once. Her feathers matted and protruding all over, her little heart smashed into a million tiny pieces like a broken window. How could something so beautiful get lost with just one blow?