Defiantly Voiceless

Eventually you’ll end up where you need to be, with who you’re meant to be with, and doing what you should be doing. Patience is the key.

Caring too much is part of the problem.

I want to write an alternative version of Romeo and Juliet where instead of being a little ponce and trying to work things out for himself, Romeo asks his smarter friends what to do about the whole thing and Benvolio and Mercutio come up with the world’s greatest plan:

I must learn to love the fool in me - the one who feels too much, talks too much, takes too many chances, wins sometimes and loses often, lacks self-control, loves and hates, hurts and gets hurt, promises and breaks promises, laughs and cries.

I exist in two places.    here, and where you are.

Before you speak, ask yourself: is it kind, is it necessary, is it true, does it improve on the silence?

How heartbreak ends? In the beginning, we rationalize. We barter. We think. We over analyze. We fantasize. Criticize. Hate. Cry. And repeat. Our chest hurts. Our bodies shake. Our minds explode with sadness. And our throats get that constant lump in the back that we try to ignore. We are afraid to sleep, afraid to eat, afraid to think. Nothing makes sense anymore. We have lost ourselves. We become walking zombies. For a few, it’s a little more than that. But nevertheless, it never fails to remind us what we lost late at night. We all think that we are the exception to the rule. We never actually believe that we are the rule. No matter how many times people tell us they aren’t coming back, we beg to differ. We wait for that day when they will come back. They’ll come back when they realize what they lost. What used to be ours, will be again. That’s what we tell ourselves. But for now, we suffer. We let the sadness eats us inside. We are glad to celebrate our pity party of one. And then a few weeks go by. Nothing has changed. Perhaps for some of you a breadcrumb or two. But nothing really to keep us fed, our hearts remain hungry. We beg for more. Call. Text. Stalk. Drive by. And once we are hooked on trying to make them reply, we don’t know how to stop. We become anxious and upset. Why are they being like this?! Then after we calm down, we make ourselves a promise to never do that again. We say to ourselves, “you made yourself look like a fool.” You apologize. You back down. You become a little more weak. Then silence plays the lead role. Then a few more days go by and your body begins to welcome the pain. Rationality and reality starts to kick in. You ask yourself where it all went wrong. Was it you? Was it them? Did you argue too much? Did you push them away? Did you hurt them? You demand for answers. Unfortunately, you won’t find out until later and even if you found your answer, it never satisfies you. The days get deeper into the year. You look back in the dark hole you’re climbing out of and you really have to count how long has it been. You’re shocked. Beaten. Bruised. Betrayed. You really thought they would wake up one day and come back. But they didn’t. Everyone was right. So you ask yourself a question, “Is this what I want to be like for the rest of my life?” You know the answer. Time had to show you. Sadly to say, this is only the beginning of it all. Just when you thought you were forgetting, moving on, being happy, laughing again… heartbreak has a funny, and inconvenient, way of showing you that it isn’t through with you. Out of nowhere, that moment comes that catches you off guard: memories, how they hold your hand when people let go. Flashbacks that hurt. It hurts you when you remember the time they said I love you for the first time, when you go to the places you’d been together. You still remember all the small things about them. Their scars, their ugly faces they made when they want to make you smile, their jokes. You remember how being held by them made you tingly inside. You remember those times you laugh and tease each other. Those good moments. Those long walks, those late night talks, those conversations about your future together, those road trips, those last minute plans. But those moments will become less and less. They won’t visit you much after while. You will soon forget how the scent of their cologne/perfume always followed you home. You’ll forget how their good morning and goodnight texts used to mean a lot to you. You’ll forget how you used to have a fight with them like a child and settled it by being matured and understanding for each other. You’ll forget how their hands fit perfectly with yours, how their hugs and kisses were highly addictive to you. You’ll forget how hearing the sound of their voice lifted all your problems you were having the day. But most of all, you will forget how much you loved them. And one day, you’ll look back and you’ll ask yourself, “What did I see in them?“  And that’s how your heartbreak ends. It might be longer for some of you, I don’t know. But we all grow from it - we become wiser, stronger. Do not think of heartbreak as despair, but as a blessing, a sign from fate, a heads up from the world. Maybe it is a reminder for you to start over again, a do-over, a chance to fix your broken heart. After all, it’s better now than later. We all have to accept that some things are beyond our control, that they are bound to happen. We only have power over ourselves and our decisions, not anyone else’s. We have to accept the fact that people will screw up no matter how many times we beg them not to. People will fall short of our expectations, and more often than not, surprise us in ways we never saw coming. Our hearts may have gotten broken, but these scars will heal, one step at a time. At the end of it all, you’re still alive. You’re still breathing. You can still smile. You can feel pain. You’re still human. And it will get better. I promise.

Heartbreak hits you in two stages: Stage one is numb. You don’t want to believe that it’s happening. You distract yourself with parties and friends. You drink alcohol until you can’t remember your name and dance under street lights with boys you just met. You wake up in the morning with an earthquake in your head and a strange man in your bed. All you want is to fill this empty feeling. Stage two is when the emotions hit you. You lay in bed for weeks, maybe even months. You cry so much that your face is naturally puffy and red now. You can’t even begin to think about going out with friends. The breakdowns begin to hit. You walk into your room and scream and cry until your voice cracks under the stress. You throw things until they break and punch walls until you are a mess of drywall and blood. The saddest part is, does anyone really know which one is worse?