Breaking Things

Sleep, sleep, sleep. God given sleep. I wanted it more than a dying man in a desert needed water.
How funny, how original, I thought to myself as the desert sun continued to rise. Coming from a desert dweller like myself.
If you asked a cartographer, he did live in a desert, here in the small Texas town. But if you tried to tell him three years ago that there was nothing in that desert state, he had a contradictory statement.
That same desert sunrise peaking through his dirty kitchen window was the last hope he had at falling asleep. Sleep, sleep, sleep.
I'll get there, I can't go on forever like this. I told myself repeatedly, as if beating it through my head would somehow will it into existence.
At the same time though, he feared this sleep he desired. He feared it because unlike in the day, he could not fight himself to return to her door. Fighting himself during the day was torture, but in the night... What could keep his body from sleepwalking to her window? That was the key problem to sleep, he couldn't manipulate his thoughts that way.
That was his nights...staying awake, the endless cups of cheap coffee, turning on the sofa.
The majority of his day consisted in justifying reasons to go to her, and telling himself how she could once again take over his life.
He got up from the sofa and went to get himself another coffee to survive through the working day.
He squeezed his eyes tightly for a moment. Getting away from her control...Wasn't she still doing that to him in this very moment? His thoughts still, if not more, consumed by her?
That was the reason he left. Though he could never tell her... Leaving because he loved her too much seemed to be a justified reason to him.
He would have married her...And so he left. He couldn't let someone take him like that.
He shuddered as he realized this was the thought he always avoided admitting to himself.
His mind just festered over the memory of her. Her golden hair with ribbons, it would hang in a small braid, an assortment of ponytails, whatever fitted her that day when she woke. Oh, her gray sweatpants, and her lips that would move as she listened to music. Her lips that....
No, he'd gone too far again. He took a sip of his now prepared dawn coffee.
Even black, it could not rid the taste of her left in his mouth.









She sighed. What was so hard about just getting back to the real world?
She was sick of these artists on the radio who sang of love healing in time. The songwriters obviously had never been 18 and completely in love. They knew nothing. They couldn't imagine the thrill of kissing in an old venue, to be laying with your best friend for hours, to debate of love, life, and inevitable death. It wasn't appealing to her though; death. Even in these moments. If she were to die, she couldn't have at least those memories of the night...The Night...
What was even worse, and often thought of it, was the "Why?". The reasons never added up. So, she left it there in her thoughts.
She figured that she probably no longer crossed his thoughts...So, why sicken herself with these of him?


Could it be possible for the autumn chill to have seeped through the skin and all the way to my veins? Because that's what I felt like in that moment. Autumn is her favorite season. It's when she likes to crunch the leaves under her pink soled converse shoes from 1989. I think she was the only person I knew the fact that converse were invented in 1917.
Every time I went into work, it was always the same. Always the same comments they gave me.
“You look like you need a cup of coffee, bro.”
“You look like you've seen a ghost.”
“I hate to say it man, but you did this to yourself.”
No, wait. That last comment was what I just told myself. The rest of them might as well have said it. It was carved into his very conscience.
Today's comment was more concerned, coming from one of my nicer co-workers.
“Look, we all just joke around 'cause we don't want to get too involved. It's your...er, business, but I have to ask you. Why can't you find a way to, well, move on?” His hand on my shoulder seemed warm enough, but my answer was ice cold...And true.
“Because I run out of things to break.”
I couldn't keep doing this, living without her. At least not in peace.


I stopped using my iPod app on my iPhone only to shower. But even then, my fender shook the walls of my bathroom. I find it easier to have the lyrics someone else has written to lead my thoughts. If I'm running the words through my mind, I can't physically think of him. Oh, but how I did. The play counts of his playlists grew, and I sang in my heart ever melody to him. I shut my eyes and plead to whoever controls life itself...I plead that he will hear these melodies...If not with his ears, with his heart. Maybe we lost that connection, and he will never hear my heartsong. At least no one could take music away. At least music doesn't pick up his bass guitar and leave without a face-to-face goodbye. The tears slunk down rapidly in the old drain...


God, she smelled amazing. It was from her lingerie shop, and it was completely her. Even the name: Pure Seduction. Printed in gold on the little glass bottle. It was the smell I tried to maintain in my jackets, in the den's couch cushions. It's true she was all pure seduction. She spoke it with every glance she gave me. Simply spoke, kissed me... Then she'd tell me to stop playing Edward and that she 'knew' she wasn't that attractive. I could never put words in her ears that satisfied her. So I shut my mouth and took her hand instead. But even that I avoided. Both of us tended to have naturally cold hands. Although when he held them together, for an extended period of time anyway, they'd begin to heat up. I was always worried she'd find my sweaty hands disgusting. The last thing I wanted to do was repel her away from me.


Fall classes were to start in two weeks. I was hoping the new university level of studies would help maybe tone down the misery I was suffering by it's distraction. I tried sometimes just to focus on my daily late summer to-do's. I had yet to recollect my apartment and find my school supplies. They were scattered I was sure, unlike the pieces of my heart. My heart hadn't been broken. It simply stopped when it lost reason to live. If I were to see his face...would it begin to beat again? She didn't know.


I woke completely shook and still trembling madly. My heart was racing a million miles a minute and my hand grasped for the sheets I had kicked onto the floor. But this was more than a nightmare. It was my life without her by my side. I had to see her. There was no sense, no need even, just that I had to hold her as I had to exist. I threw open the door of my bedroom and then I remember nothing more of the run down the street. The light was on, although it must have been 4 AM. The blinds of the window were shut, but the window must have been open because I heard her crying. My heart stopped it's rapid beating. I heard my name. She was crying, and I was the reason. I broke.


I had reached the lowest point. I had imagined this would never end. My body shook, and sobs shook my body itself. The first cry since he had left. I cried out his name, as if I possibly could have him hear all the way up the street. I wrapped my arms around myself there on the very floor. A crash lifted my head, and there he was. He had throw my blinds and we both slowly rose. He looked me in the eye, swept me into his arms.
“I couldn't do it,” he whispered in my ear.
“What?” I gasped in my sobs.