When a heart is broken, regardless of whether it’s platonic or not, there needs to be a clear conclusion that wraps into the thesis of the story. There needs to be a clear beginning, middle and end. It doesn’t have to be in five paragraphs. Sometimes, a story can only be written in a few sentences. That was the case with us. However, we didn’t write our thesis. You did.
We didn’t think to write a thesis, because we never thought we needed one. Friends 'til the end, friends forever, we always printed in sharpie on our polaroids or disposable cameras. The road trips, the drunken nights spent in playgrounds, or the sober nights singing karaoke in basements, or getting high in tree houses, on railroad tracks gossiping about what boy got with which girl, writing songs in garages, dancing in parking lots, and in whatever location we could find, we found clarity in those treasured moments.
I was with you through it all. Through all the boys you had to sleep with to realize you were more than just your insecurities etched out on paper, bleeding through a ball point pen. You were more than all the girls who made you feel like you had to bleed to fit in. I held your hand as you grew into the soul you called your own. You claimed your independence, maturity, and you held your own and when I cried, you cried. When I hurt, you hurt. When I was hours away, you’d come with me, because you knew how much you meant to me.
Now it’s August 2016 and I’m standing under a dim lit sky, with only questions, never getting to why our story never had a bridge. Where’s the climax? Did I miss it somewhere along the way? Did it get lost in translation, or did I throw it accidentally away?
When a heart is broken, two people must be at fault.
Maybe I changed for the better, and maybe that part of me that changed, was the same part you decided wasn’t good enough anymore. Maybe we grew up too soon, and the seasons changed quicker than usual. But that’s not a conclusion. That’s not a clear end. I cannot be the only one at fault, in a story of two people who scarred another’s bones, and bruised their fragile soul. But that’s also not a middle. That’s also not an end.
When a heart is broken, one heart must move past another at a consistent and steady rate. Yours was crossing state borders and mine was far behind the town line.
This story I’m telling doesn’t have a clear end, it doesn’t have a conclusion because the thesis wasn’t clearly mapped out. We couldn’t understand the writings of the maps we created in those moments which were so liminal in thought, but so permanent in value.
When a heart is broken there needs to be clarity through thought. All I got was pain. And this pain doesn’t have a creator, it doesn’t have a name. I guess it’s growing up, I guess it’s moving on. I guess it’s learning how to love the other half of you when someone took it and ran along crossing state lines and new horizons, leaving you with a story composed of a few sentences.
I said, “I’ll always love you” and you didn’t even reply. So that’s the conclusion. Sometimes closure isn’t a part of the story, however, there’s a slight clarity in goodbye.
