Daily Times

Although, I know that there is no clear disclaimer about a break up. But I like to believe that we are always warned. I wonder, what the signs are that a relationship is approaching its end. On a warm evening, a friend said that the best way to break up with someone is to invite them to work out with you and take them to a frozen yogurt joint and while slurping up yogurt, when she says “this is not working out!” you say, “Exactly!”

It seems pretty funny when you think of it. But it also means someone will be shunned silent before being ripped from a hopeful future. And I don’t think I was hurt at the part where we “broke up” per say. I think I was always pained by whatever happened before and after. When text messages begin carrying anxious waits and phone calls become a ‘weekend thing’ or perhaps when the silence between you is compensated with forceful make outs. I think that’s a pretty clear pre-chorus slowly approaching the loudest part of the song. I don’t think loving someone is a bad thing, but to love them only enough to not feel alone is a sin greater than any other.

I think break ups can hurt a lot sometimes, that moment when you want to beg her to stay but you can’t. That helplessness, I think that’s painful. I think the months of almost texting her and constantly stalking her Instagram, looking at each image for the exact duration of a sad love song is painful. I think writing about someone that isn’t yours, is excruciatingly painful.

All of this makes me think about my last break up. Moments after our unceremonious uncoupling, my ex and I stood in the same elevator slowly falling out of love with one another. It was interesting for me to be in such a small place with someone who I still loved, but was no longer obligated to be in love with. In that small space, we exchanged a long glance with each other, almost as if an apology, for the false hope of a future we gave each other and which will perhaps not ever come true.

It seems pretty funny when you think of it. But it also means someone will be shunned silent before being ripped from a hopeful future. And I don’t think I was hurt at the part where we ‘broke up’ per say. I think I was always pained by whatever happened before and after. When text messages begin carrying anxious waits and phone calls become a ‘weekend thing’ or perhaps when the silence between you is compensated with forced physical intimacy

Anything that breaks you, makes you whole / & anything that makes you, tears you apart.

I am already mourning the possible vanishing of everything in my life that is not finite. And, of course, the sweetness of those who have long departed. I have given up on wanting to bring back the dead, especially to a world that isn’t any better than when they left it. But I do long for the moments when they were alive. A hand brushing across a cheek or a 2AM sing along. It is maybe unfair to have found myself again in so many different types of love, and still with so much desire. The dream of a wide and empty familiar street to stroll down with someone you love, or someone you once loved. I still wish I could ask to hold her hand.

After walking out of that elevator, and ever since that night, I have wanted her to come back, but I have also wanted her to be happy. I have wished her better love, but have also wished her in the other half of my bed. It’s interesting; how we always wish for things we don’t know what we’d do with if we got them.

And I think that is the difference between wanting something and desiring something. We desire love, but all we want is to have enough sorrow to walk into a lover’s arms and not be able to walk out.

The writer can be reached at ammaarwrites@gmail.com