90 days later

Too many times have we put our hope in someone's palm of hand and they crush it to pieces. Too many times have we been told that we'll bounce back because when you hit rock bottom the only way is up. Too many times have our hearts went through series of heartbreaks and it's not pumping any less than it used to.

But little that we realize, we keep trusting people hands despite the traces of crushed hopes. But little that people know, when some people fall, they don't just fall; they broke their legs and spend an eternity down below. But little that we know, every time a heart get broken, it gets colder that it no longer knows the definition of warmth.

For me, right now, it’s been 97 days since I last spoke to the one person I wish I could have conversations with every single day. And if that same thing - or something similar - has ever happened to you, then you know how degrading, heartbreaking and just completely torturous it is, knowing that what you feel in your heart has led to you being ignored, and I don’t think there’s anything colder than being ignored by the one person you care for the most. And to make it even worse, you know that your next conversation with him or her will only be started by them, and you don’t know how long that will be or even if it will ever happen. So you’re just left waiting… missing everything about them and missing what you had. And it doesn’t matter how many other people you talk to because you only want to be talking to that one person. Yeah, the person you’re thinking of right now. And you go over every single detail from your last conversation and wonder where you went wrong, and until you have the next one - whenever it may be - you’ll never figure it out.

But one thing about heartbreaks is this; it's not the end of the world. Therefore, I won’t tell you to “man up”, because when a heart breaks, it cracks down the middle in exactly the same place for everybody. Sometimes the fault line is just a little more jagged than others. The worst thing you can do right now is run away from home, because even though your heart is snapped like a bird’s neck, it’s still the only apartment you’ll ever have, no matter how dilapidated the back porch gets. Maybe most people think a man would be strong, be tough, but in a situation like this even cigarette burns feel like forest fires. Don’t touch the mess of your torn vena cava and bloodlines- they’ll flame up like a funeral pyre.

This might get ugly. Fight with your fists; throw left hooks like the wedding bouquets you’re suddenly not sure you’ll ever get to smell. No more limping like a stray dog with its tail between its legs; when you were born even the bones in your spine were already trying to make you stand upright, so prove scoliosis wrong. No more throwing stones at glass houses- you’ve already got enough brokenness to deal with for one night. No antiseptic either, no bandages.

Let there be scars.

Let them come.

They’re just anatomical proof of survival.

M. Qarin Al Maduri