Thirteen Hours

for thirteen hours, i understood exactly what all break-up songs really meant.

for thirteen hours, i could swear i became the muse that pushed poets to write about a lost love.

for thirteen hours, i became juliet who saw romeo bleed his life away, became sylvia whose last memory of ted would be his back, and became virginia with the stones in her pocket as heavy as the weight atlas endured.

it was tempting to be selfish at the moment, to beg for his patience, to ask him to stay and to try--- if only a bit more. but i understood that tying him down would not do any of us good. it would just leave us both miserable and frustrated.

i let go of the rope as he did too.

i imagined us in separate boats in the middle of a vast ocean, held together by a rope that we clung on to. and then, as we let go, i couldn't help but want to grab the rope as it slowly went down deeper and deeper. and, along with it, my heart sank.

there would be no need to say that i cried. the feeling that everything, including those moments that you have not had with someone yet, has been lost is perhaps most painful. the future that you wanted to spend with someone would remain a distant dream that you would wish to slip under the bed, never to be unearthed again.

the night dragged on, and dragged along memories that would have otherwise made me smile. the most poignant thing is that, you start to think that you actually started to live as you started to love. all else, at that moment, remained insignificant and futile.

space is not what you get when you lose something--- its emptiness.

i was empty for thirteen hours.