my careless contagion

If I let go of something that never belonged to me in the first place, is anything actually lost? If the woman I loved spread herself among the stars — big men, small men, and men in between — have I lost anything?  I loved her undeniably through my best years and through the worst of times. She was like a metronome in my heart, but one day that metronome stopped. That day was the end of forever.  I don't know when it happened, but it happened as sure as the sun and moon. She died in my heart, and at her own hand. She pierced me through so many times, all the blood ran out, and I was left standing but with the wind whistling through my veins. She kept me on like a sharecropper to work her fields as my mind escaped over the hills and into the woods a thousand times. And, one day, it became a reality. I was gone, and she was left holding my broken chains.  She always said she was afraid of "forever." Somehow, I got her to believe. When I put the ring (titanium, be...

It was a privilege to have my heart broken by you, you beautiful thing. You let me believe things I never thought possible. I saw for a moment what it would be like to be loved by a woman like you, and I was forever changed. I cannot go back to my old self. I cannot but be forever grateful. You may have left me for good, but you've left me with such a wonderful, priceless, and perfect gift — the gift of hope.  The man I am today is the not the same man I was two years ago. The way you went through me was unprecedented and pure and complete. You rearranged me forever. Some may think this a bad thing, but I do not. Bad things happened, I know, but bad things always happen. Rarely do such good things happen, and almost never to me. I know we're done. I know we're over. But you still linger like a nuclear bomb. You will half-life away long after I'm dead. When I believed you could be mine, it changed something fundamental in me. When you left me, I rearranged again....