Sat in my apartment and cried.

Cried until the tears formed a single stream and pooled in the hollow indentation at the base of my throat, spilling.

If you had been watching you wouldn't have heard a sound because the air conditioner was roaring so loud it muffled even the cracked sobs.

Thought about getting in the shower. Putting on a great outfit. Getting drunk with friends at the bar.

Remembered how that doesn't work.

The heart can't process pain like the liver filters alcohol. Undealt with pain sticks around. Denial lodges it deeper.

So the crying continued.

And continued.

And continued spasmodically.

Got tired of the crying. Changed. Drove to the Super Target NOW OPEN by my apartment and bought some really expensive eye drops, ones that cost more than $3, and did some damage control.

(The fact a person can go to Target in any state of disarray and no one will comment or appear to notice makes me truly appreciate living in America)

Came home and sat on the stairs for a long time.

If you had been watching you would have thought the wall had some kind of hypnotic power but actually a slideshow of us was playing in my head.

Highlights and lowlights. The usual scenes.

Thought the crying was going to start again but it didn't.

Told myself the worst was over.

Put on my sneakers.

Walked to the park.

In the narrow embrace of the trees started running.

Hard running, hard breathing.

Went all the way inside my head until there was no reason to be running and no running and no park and no me.

Got inside the culvert, took my shuffle off and yelled.

At my own weakness. At yours.

At the discrepancy between what love could be and what it ends up being.

Walked back to my apartment.

Booted up the computer and listened to that Sia song.

Wrote this.

Turned off the computer and waited for it to be Monday.

TAGS: breakups, getting over someone, surviving breakups

MEGAN POWER was born and raised in Atlantic Canada. Her first love is nonfiction, but a complicated affair with poetry began back when Mrs. Banfield drilled “Farewell to Nova Scotia”, a traditional folk song, into the first graders' heads with a passion bordering on sadism: Farewell to Nova Scotia, your sea-bound coast / Let your mountains dark and dreary be / For when I am far away on the briny ocean tossed / Will you ever heave a sigh or a wish for me? She has lived in Japan, Mexico, the U.S. and the U.K. Her work has appeared in print in America West, Razor, San Antonio Express-News, Women's Health and Fitness, NSIDE and on various websites. She has taught adult education for more than ten years. Fireworks, gas station wine, trashtastic pop, Thursdays, smoked salmon and intertextuality bring her an effervescent kind of happiness. One of the original contributors at TNB (she wrote the inaugural post!), Megan is currently a Master's in Creative Writing student at Trinity University in Wales, where she spends unromantic amounts of time at a gray study carrel working on a collection of thematically linked short stories called Modern Monogamy. Hit her up at meganlpower@gmail.com or stop by her photo blog: http://meganpower.blogspot.com She thanks you very much for reading and commenting.

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This entry was posted on Thursday, August 2nd, 2007 at 12:26 pm and is filed under Essays, Nonfiction. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.