From The Girl Who Broke Your Heart

I am sorry I broke your heart. I am sorry I made you feel like you don’t matter. You do. Though, right then, sitting across the room from me, you didn’t matter – not like you used to. There’s no right and wrong in that, perhaps you will understand someday when you are in my place, breaking up with someone else as she sits there crying her heart out. Then you will know that I wasn’t wrong to feel what I did.

I am sorry I didn’t hold you, I am sorry I just limply let my hand lie in yours as you clutched at mine, desperately. Please understand that there have been hours I have held your hands – I no longer can.

I am sorry I didn’t kiss you when you asked, I offered a hug instead. I hope you will remember that I have happily kissed you a hundred times before – I just cannot any more.

I am sorry I wasn’t convinced by anything you said – not a word that tumbled out of your lips. I wasn’t convinced but I wasn’t unaffected. Those words reminded me of summer rains, autumn hail and little pools of winter sunshine – they were beautiful because they were honest, wrung out of your heart as it was breaking. As I sat across the dim room and evening melted in through the curtains.

Perhaps I should not apologize for ending things between us – I should apologize for feelings that change. Once we were strangers, then friends, then lovers and now I will understand if you never want to see me again. If you made space for unfamiliarity to make place for tender familiarity of crumpled bed sheets, lingering perfumes, half cooked potatoes for breakfast – then why can you not make space for slightly uncomfortable politeness of stunted hellos, how is everythings, I hope you are happys?

When things change we cannot possibly control the way the way they will alter – we just pour ourselves in along with those love letters, the cherry lollipops, pork dumplings, innumerable glasses of wine, long walks, beer pints, bacon bits, gifts for Valentine’s and the memory of the first kiss – and hope that it turns to love. We wait. And wait some more. One day it does.

Then we add a generous measure of morning teas, meals we tried to cook together, laughter, notes left on the kitchen counter, lazy kisses on the couch, drives home, movie nights, friends and family – and hope that this will be a forever. We wait. And wait some more. And then it doesn’t.

Please understand that we both dissolved ourselves in this. I am happy we did – but am sorry I can no longer love you. In all those additions and subtractions, my soul altered along a different plane. A plane away from yours. I am sorry I no longer want you – like I have wanted you before.

I am sorry I cannot hold you anymore – my hands are going to be empty for a while – as will yours. Or we could move on sooner than I manage to return your things to you and my favourite candy runs out in your house. I am willing to wait. Like before.

I am sorry for the anger and the hollow feeling. Please understand that I have felt it too and therefore I must let go and break your heart in the process. I have had my heart broken in the past and I know it feels horrible. I am not trying to calm my past demons through you – I am therefore just saying sorry. And I hope that it will be enough. Someday.

Someday when you lie on the lap of another girl you love and she leans over you to brush her lips against yours, you taste a hint of the cherry lip balm and you remember that I said sorry – long ago – sorry that I broke your heart.