“Infractus Fatum”
Broken Destiny
He stands and watches her walk away,
her arms around the one
who told him, “Everything will be okay.
God has a plan.”
He watches the streetlights shine,
the light dancing through her beautiful hair
“It wasn’t supposed to end up like this.
Where did I go wrong?”
He watches her walk away, and with her
everything he always wanted leaves him,
and he falls upon the ground, broken and
beaten, the life streaming from his heart.
She disappears into the shadows, but he can
still hear her laugh, can still feel her breath,
can still see her eyes as they peer into his
and speak: “I want to be with you forever.”
A quiet rain begins to fall, the water running
between his shaking fingers, washing away
all his hopes and dreams, carrying away
everything he always longed for.
The rain grows harder, soaking his clothes,
and the thunder crackles, but all he can hear
is her sweet voice: “I like you and I feel like
I always will. Let’s make memories together.”
The tears mix with the rain, and his breaking heart
finds its resonance in the booming thunder
“It wasn’t supposed to end up like this.
Where did I go wrong?”
He does not want answers. He does not want comfort.
He does not want your theology, nor your philosophy.
He wants one thing, the thing that haunts him.
He wants her back. He wants to hold her, comfort her,
tell her he loves her and that he always will.
“I love her,” he weeps in the middle of the street.
“I love her. I want her. I just want her.”
He wants to run his fingers through her hair,
wants to kiss her and cherish her and
give her the world. He wants her to know
that real love exists.
But she has left him. She has taken his heart and
wrenched it in two. “I didn’t want to,” she said.
“I didn’t want to hurt you.” But you still hurt me.
You took my dreams and stomped them underfoot.
His heart burns. It aches. He loved her. He loves her.
He will always love her. All he wants is her.
Now she runs off with his best companion.
Now he has taken that which he loved the most.
All the quiet laughs, the gentle moments,
all are lost into the hands of betrayal.
The evening has turned to night. The rain falls.
“It wasn’t supposed to end up like this.
What did I do wrong?”
His hands unfurl and he holds it in his palm.
The blade glints in the dim glow of the streetlights;
the water runs down the serrated edges
and the steel sparkles with the flashes
of lightning.
“It wasn’t supposed to end up like this.
What did I do wrong?”
His life has fallen apart. His love has abandoned him.
His friend—the only one there for him—has betrayed him.
His god has seemingly turned his back on him.
“My future is darkness, despair, hopelessness, resignation.
For what purpose do I exist, but to suffer with each passing moment?”
He takes the hilt in his hands, twists the blade towards his heart.
His heart has already been broken; it lies in pieces behind his ribs.
What harm can a mere physical blade do? Her words
have pierced him like a thousand burning arrows.
To some, death is bitter, an enemy, a gall.
To others it is the sweet song of life, a deliverance, a gift.
The blade drips with water; it will be easy
to pierce the clothes.
He looks up to see if she may return, daring beyond all logic
that she may come back, fall upon her knees,
and say what she said just last night:
“I want to be with you forever.”
But no one comes.
He is utterly alone.
He closes his eyes. He sees all their memories rushing him
at once, a mosaic of life and love and happiness—
a forgotten existence. He sees her
hair blowing in the wind on that fall trip to the park; sees her
dimples when she smiles at his innocent jokes; sees
the way her cheeks sparkle in the evening sun; sees
the quiet dances of her eyes sending messages of adoration.
He feels her fingers wrapping around his own, feels the
warmth of her embrace; feels
her breath tingling against his neck; feels
her dove-soft hair tickling his cheek.
One thrust, and it will all be over. One thrust
and the memories will be gone. One thrust, and all the
suffering, the pain, the agony, the despair,
all the hopelessness, the futility, the resignation
will be gone… vanquished as his blood runs between
the cobblestones and disappears in the rain.
His arms are shaking. Excitement? Anxiety? Fear?
He has no other desire in the world, but to
plunge the knife deep down into his heart,
to break the cycle of his life, a life
of heartache, heartbreak, of constantly and always
never being good-enough, cool-enough, good-looking-enough,
never talented enough, cute enough, never smart enough,
never wonderful enough, never tall and dark and handsome.
This is an end to all the inadequacies that scar his own reality.
His fingers wrap tight around the hilt; the blade sings sweetly in his ears.
“I can’t go on,” he weeps. “I can’t go on. I can’t go on…”
He just wants to love and be loved, to cherish and be cherished,
to understand and be understood, to comfort and be comforted,
to be there and have her be there for him.
Not anyone will do; she is the one, the only one.
She made his heart quicken, his pulse jump,
his muscles go limp. Now she has made
his heart fall to pieces,
his pulse shall die, and now
she has made the muscles poise
for the only refuge he can fathom.
He looks towards heaven, into the flashing lightning and the thunder.
He cries out for deliverance, but there is no answer.
The angels have shut their mouths.
Even God has turned His back on him.
His cheeks are pale with the pallor of dejection, and
his eyes see a future of bleak shadows and whispered
regrets. His cries come from the deep wells
of a broken heart engraved forever with the
deep stains of long-lost love:
“I want her. All I want is her. I just want to be with her.”
He would do anything for a second chance.
It will not come.
He wants to be with her badly.
But she turned her back on him.
She left him in the cold, naked and shivering,
exposed to all the mockeries of romance.
She took his heart, crumbled it in her fingers,
and spit upon the remnants.
He would have given her the world:
but she took the world away from him.
He takes a deep breath, the raindrops in the air filling
his lungs, and the world spins to a halt:
the raindrops hang suspended, reflecting
the streetlights, a panorama of diamonds;
the lightning bolts across the sky hover,
their electricity spinning webs in the clouds;
his heart holds to its last beat,
the meaningless blood in his veins
drawing their last breaths.
A deep serenity embraces him, promising him
the only security he has ever tasted.
With a single wrench of the muscles,
the blade pierces his shirt and enters
his flesh, the serrated edges chewing
flakes of bones from his ribs before
the heart is torn in inexorable agony.
He pitches forward, limbs suddenly weak,
and he stares at the ground, the puddles
reflecting the grotesque mask upon his face:
a mask of disenchantment,
a mask of resolution,
a mask of the only hope he knows.
He falls onto his back and finds himself sprawled
in the middle of the street, the blood soaking
his shirt and mixing with the rain.
The raindrops feel cool upon his burning face.
His fingertips tingle; his face goes pale.
He closes his eyes and lets the strength drip
from his soul. All he can think about is how
the knife does not cause him as much pain
as the words she spoke to him:
“I don’t love you anymore.
I don’t want to be with you.
I want to be with your best friend.”
He closes his eyes, and he embraces the
quietness, the darkness, and the serenity.
All the memories, the pains, and the
weeping is forgotten as he shuts down.
He lies on the street: broken, bloodied,
marred, and maimed. But now he is truly
alive.
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