So your heart is broken.
So what.
It's not like it's the first time. It's not like this was the first time you felt your heart lift, and laugh, and then fall so delicately, so delightfully into a world made new by the presence of another.
The difference is that this time you have no idea how you're going to claw your way back to the surface. This time you have no idea if you even want to try.
Still, though, you have to survive. You have to get through the days, motion by motion, and the nights, regret by regret.
It should be so easy.
All you have to do is forget her.
All you have to do is remember how to exist without her.
It is going to be the hardest thing you've ever done.
Because you've been down this road before, you've stared down these two paths before. Everything you know comes down to these two choices.
You can either be brave, and try to pick up the pieces of your heart she's left in her wake.
Or you can let her destroy you, burn you down into ashes to spread in the unforgiving wind.
You've been at this crossroads before, you've wept rivers under this bridge. You've torn yourself apart, excising every touch and memory from your skin, your heart.
You've stood here before.
This is just the first time you've wanted to give in.
No. You're wrong. You haven't been here before.
This is someplace entirely new.
This is a darkness you built for yourself. You know this like you know the path the tears will take down your face. Like the feel of her trembling, searching fingers haunts your skin.
This is nothing like you've ever felt before.
This room of ashes? You destroyed everything you loved all by yourself. You took your eyes off the lit candle, you blinked and in the space of a single heartbeat you destroyed yourself. You destroyed her. She flickered for you, she burned for you, she licked at you like the curl of flame licks after the smoke and you felt her heat singe your skin.
You took your eyes away for just a heartbeat, you blinked and the inferno caught.
Now all that's left is the taste of smoke on your lips, the same lips that used to drink from hers.
Those regrets you sleep with?
You see her everywhere. She's everywhere. You see her through the glass, through the trees, through the seas of people. You see what's left of her, what you left of her. You see the brittle anger, the cracks, the thin facade.
You see all of this and you know you have no right to your own pain, no right to mourn your own loss, your own breaking.
Because you broke her.
Because she gave you something beautiful, something precious, and you took your eye off it.
She's the cold regret you wrap yourself around in the middle of the night, the absence who fills every empty corner of your life, your thoughts, your heart.
She's the hollow of your cheek, the tremble of your hands.
She's the hallow in your heart, this one, perfect thing.
This isn't a crossroads, no. There is no choice.
You have to be brave because you have to survive. You have to be brave because you're already burned, because you know that this time? This time you dug the pit yourself. Because you know you'll never see the surface again.
You have to be brave because you don't have the right to be broken.