A Slow Death

Despair has struck. How to survive the catastrophe which brings us to our knees. Turmoil, lies, betrayal. Portrayal of coping (or lack therefore of).

How is it that you can say you love me;

That you have always loved me?

Throughout all our days and nights

You have never done a single thing

To make me happy,

To bring a smile to my face.

Quite the opposite I am afraid, my love.

You have seemingly gone out of your way

To make my life as miserable as yours.

 

When I am alone, you bring me joy.

I sit in a room, my thoughts alone to keep me company.

And what wonderful companions they are.

Music in the background

Of undying love.

But in truth, I fear you have none for me.

When I watch a movie

The kiss always makes me smile

And cry with tears of longing.

I wonder why it is that you never see me as such.

 

Your heart doesn't long for me

Nor does it grow wings so to fly to the heavens above

With you shouting to the people below

The happiness you feel that I am in your life.

When you see me, your heart doesn't race

Pounding out the melody of our song

Which is all I think about every day.

 

If you truly loved me

As you claim to do

Your heart would ache at a mere thought of my misery;

My tears that I cry would break your heart in half,

And you would curse yourself for being the cause of them.

 

My love, if you truly felt for me as you say you do

Instead of ignoring me

And everything I wish of you,

You would be striving to make me smile.

Defy heaven and hell

And do the impossible

To stop one tear and bring one smile.

 

But instead I find myself quite alone

In a world that I planned to share

With a man I begin to realize never existed.

You cannot, or will not

Be the man I had so hoped that you were

And that I know you could be.

So instead you will brood

All through the nights and the days.

I will be left behind

To clean up the mess my life has become,

The broken pieces of my heart,

My love for you,

The dreams that shattered

With everything that I realized

Will never be.

 

There are so many things

That I wish I could say to you,

Without fear of your sharp bitter tongue;

For it lashes out viciously at me.

It has a meanness that whips me,

Punishes me for a reason

That I must confess that I know not.

 

I cannot help but wonder why,

Why you say you love me,

Why you treat me so cruelly,

Why can you never do a single thing

That I ask of you,

No matter how simple a task?

I confess I wonder

What I did

Or didn't do.

I thought that I did everything possible

In order to make you happy,

To give you a good life.

I wonder why you find yourself

Unable to do so in return?

 

Are you afraid to love?

To lose yourself in that overwhelming sensation?

That you are totally care-free and blissful?

Afraid to let someone in so much

That you might lose a part of yourself;

A part that is theirs to have their way with?

Can you not bear the idea

Of someone loving you so completely

That you are entrusted with their heart?

Do you find it too much a responsibility,

That their very being,

Their heart and soul is in your hands,

Making you unable to enjoy being in love?

I weep over the loss of you,

Yet I fear that you feel nothing over the loss of me.

 

Do you have any feelings

About the fact that I will so shortly be gone?

I fear you don't believe it.

You talk as though there is a tomorrow

Of times to come

And plans down the road.

 

But my love, I won't be there

Don't you see?

When I walk out that door,

There can be no looking back.

You make it too easy to get turned around.

A look, a breath, a sound-

Any one of these I can lose myself to.

 

I don't know what has become of my life,

Just that this isn't what I saw.

Where we are, who we are

I don't know where the path is

That leads back to the road we are supposed to follow.

Is that road still open?

Has it been closed off, with no detours?

 

How am I supposed to go on,

When you are still here next to me?

You always know the things to say

That is just enough to make me

Rethink and examine everything I thought I would say,

Or to make me believe something for a while,

Just enough to satisfy me,

Until you came up with some better line.

 

I need to let you go

And get on with my life.

But how am I supposed to do that

When my head and heart

Are both telling me that you are my life?

Yet I know that I don't deserve

This life of misery and discontentment

That you make me live day to day.

 

I just want to scream,

To curse your name

For making me love you so.

My heart aches over what you have done to me,

While my arms ache to hold you again.

Tears fall from my eyes

Over words that you have said,

While my lips wish for you to kiss them

And my tears away.

 

I stop to wonder if there will ever be a time

When you will show me

Some sort of display of this love you claim?

Is it so hard to come up behind someone

And give them a hug,

To play with her hair and whisper in her ear

Just how much you love and need her?

 

Can you lie in bed next to her

And want nothing more than to curl up beside her

And spoon her, holding her the way she deserves to be held?

Will you ever slide in bed while she's sleeping,

Wrap your arms around her and talk to her,

Even though she can't hear you?

 

I do remember a time when I knew you loved me,

That there was a boy who loved a girl

And he wrote her messages and she knew

Hidden within them were words of love.

 

I just don't understand you anymore

And my heart breaks just thinking of it.

I try to just let it go, but it's there

And my heart is gripped in its claws and teeth

Tearing at me more and more every day.

And I wonder how I can face another day

Wondering if it was a lie

And how I can trust you?

 

But the only thing that I know

Is that I don't know what to do.

I can't imagine living life this way

But I also can't imagine life without you.

 

I know now that there will be no great miracle.

You will not suddenly become the person I need you to be

Whether you don't know how

Or you are choosing not to be.

 

All I ever wanted was for you to love me

And to show me that you cared about me,

That my feelings were important to you.

I never understood until now

That it was something you couldn't give me,

And I will admit to being puzzled, my love

For you tell me that you always loved me;

So I can't understand why it is

That you have this inability to show me

And how you can stand to be the cause of my misery,

To know that you are the reason for these tears I cry.

 

These things are not new

You've heard them over and over,

Yet you don't love me enough

To let yourself love me.

After all we've said and been through,

You still won't allow yourself

Even a simple gesture of affection.

 

I've spent a long time wondering

What needed to be done.

I've exhausted myself trying to find ways inside

But I fear that there are no doorways

Nor windows or cracks

For I find you have sealed yourself well against me.

 

I guess I will never understand

The boy that loves a girl

But continues to shatter her heart;

In return, I will never understand

The girl who keeps letting the boy shatter it.

Why is that we only want the ones who hurt us,

That the ones who break our hearts are the ones we want the most?

 

Loving you with all the pieces

Of this shattered heart,

Is surely the slowest way to kill one's self.

 

I mean love,

What is love?

It's a burning feeling deep within your chest

It's the thought of not being able

To live one more day

Without that person whom you desire.

And what happens when that person

Does not return that affection?

 

Why do we love?

To feel complete?

But what happens when that person

Does not return that affection?

 

You are left with a hole

Where your heart once was.

And that person doesn't even care

That a piece of yourself is missing

For they had not known love,

Because surely if they had

They would be feeling the same pain

At not having you by their side,

As you feel at the loss of them.

 

So again, I must ask

Why do we love?

Why give yourself so completely

To someone you know

Isn't going to be gentle with

Your delicate heart that beats only for them?

 

Heart I beseech you,

Please leave this love behind

So we can go on and find another.

But then I must wonder

At the point of it all.

For another will surely

Break our heart the same way

And we will find ourselves

Right here with these same feelings of despair.

 

Try as I may, though I fear

I cannot let this love go,

Nor do I wish to love another so.

Why is it my heart whispers

To his cold uncaring soul?

How can I make him feel

Just a fraction of what has graced my heart?

  

I want him to feel,

To suffer as I have
With this burning love

That shows no mercy.

I want to damage that precious heart

As he has so damaged mine,

Without a caring thought.

 

Oh how this brain plots

The revenge of this shattered heart.

Does he know what love is?

Does he know how to love?

What good is a life without love?

Yes, oh yes, the mind plots

Of turning that dagger,

Of holding his heart in my hands

And squeezing until it bursts.

 

And so with a deep breath

My heart beats in anticipation

For here and now I end

This tragedy our lives have become;

I carve that delicate heart

That has never beat for me

From its place

Deep within the cave of your chest

 

And within my hands

That only wished to hold you,

I possess your wildly pounding heart

That has never before beat for me.

I make your life mine,

As I take it away from you

Just as you have possessed my heart and soul.

 

As I stare at the now-still heart

And your body at my feet,

I know now that you want me,

You want free of me,

As I have so desired of you.

You want me to give you back your heart

And be gentle with it

You know now that I made it beat

For now I have stopped it from beating.

 

But my love, revenge has never been so sweet

As I rip apart your heart.

And oh so slowly

The dagger twists and turns

As I try to find the remains of my heart;

For loving another

Is truly the slowest way to die.

 

Reviews

[zainul]

An eloquent monologue that may be related by most people.
Great efforts indeed.

[Angelove]

I love it. It's really good.

[pinpen]

My goodness what a long write, such depth and wonderful imagery. I liked this kept me reading. Wonderful suspense.