I Saw My Future With You, But You Only Saw A Goodbye

When you said goodbye I couldn’t hear it. A crack went up the side of my head, our plans, the future.

I learned they were my plans. My future. You didn’t see yourself in them or with me. You hadn’t for a long time. I wonder now if those parts will every stop aching, or if I will ever stop wondering who she is.

There were a lot of reasons you gave. They still swirl around my head like whirling flags on a line.

They get tangled, stinging my ears. Brightly colored and flapping loudly in the wind I search for you in the melee, but you’re gone. You were gone before you walked in.

It hurts for many reasons. It will continue to hurt for many reasons, most of which I will probably never understand. Part of this is accepting I do not get to understand another person’s choices which impact my life so devastatingly. I still do not understand how one person, seemingly so intertwined with another, can walk away.

Going from and us, a we, a them…to an I, a me…singular and alone in the world is scary and frightening when you have no control over it.

It is lonely. It was not like you took only yourself, but like you had ripped off my skin, exposing me to the world. I had shared my deepest thoughts and darkest secrets with you. You, who knew my most tender moments of passion and love, as well as my foulest moments as a human being and still chose to stay, were leaving. And you were taking all of that knowledge with you. You were taking me with you.

Now I stumble around trying to figure out who I am. Who I am without you and us. What my new routine is after years of it being where are you going? What should we do? What do you want to watch? You were my partner, in friendship, in love, and in life but I wasn’t yours.

I keep trying to replay the moment you said you couldn’t do it, but all I hear is the cracking.

A fracture went up my middle; I split in two. My ears burned, my heart thumped so loudly I thought the neighbors might hear.

Couldn’t do what? Couldn’t do us. And as much as it hurts, as open-ended as it feels, I have to figure out a way not to do us anymore too.