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It was only because I thought I was done with tears. I thought maybe – maybe I was cried out for good this time, but then I had to look again, just to be sure, and the words came without your voice. I heard the sounds of wind across pavement, and I found out that I only blocked the conduit to the sea; I didn't destroy it.
You realize that hurts more than stones? This is what it feels like to ache, like you've been kicked and stabbed and strangled and held tenderly all at once. This is that gods be damned sensation everyone goes on about during daylight; the word one only whispers in the twilit hours of dark. Love. It sounds like someone begging for forgiveness. Love. That's when you want to kick them, and choke them, and laugh as the light leaves their eyes. That’s when the satisfaction is the greatest – when she's on her knees in front of you, and she's sobbing her god damn eyes out, and you can look at her and say so gently "I love you." Because you know it isn't true.
And she still believes you.
Love is power. Perverted power, meant to put a hold on a single individual and drag his marrow out through his bones. Love is courage deflated. Love is the coward's excuse and the romantic's hidey hole. Love is pretend. Love is nothing. But for those who know how to use a four letter word, love can become anything.
I don't love you was the reason she killed herself.
I've always loved you was the reason he didn't.
In this way, the world goes 'round.
But I still stop by the mirror, every time I go by, and look over my shoulder in the reflection. I still see you, sometimes, and I can't help the tears. I thought I was done with them. I've never cried so much over one human being. Not willingly. And I don't do it willingly now, either. You've had more tears for being alive than my family has for being dead.
I'd ask if that made you happy, but something tells me I'd only get a smile. And the silence of no return text.