"How to Break a Heart in 160 Characters": A Brief, Fictional Narrative.

I am shrinking, I think, or growing without the room to grow, like a reptile in a terrarium far too small.



There are people all around, everywhere everywhere all the time and they are talking—always talking. The words take up so much room in the air; the voices clog it and I can’t breathe anymore. I tried to add my part. I tried to think of it as music. But it isn’t. There was no harmony; I didn’t know how to make my words fit together with everyone else’s.



It feels strange, not speaking. It’s been nearly four weeks now since I’ve said a word, and the scabs are slowly turning into scars. Maybe I will say something when the red is all gone. Maybe then I’ll speak. Can words be blades? Each one opening a fresh new gash as they fall from my mouth, bleeding me dry? Maybe then I will speak.



I can’t quiet all the other voices, but I can quiet my own. Hush, hush; I croon to myself in my mind. Shh, it doesn’t matter. It reduces some of the oppressive noise, and I guess that’s something.



It’s hardest in the office of my therapist. It is so quiet there, as she waits for me to speak, but for a full hour I can’t even fill the void with my usual lies. I think my silence might hold more truth in it than words ever did.



I write, when I need to. Pass a note, send a text. The scratch of pen on paper, the click of keys beneath my fingers—they are not nearly as abrasive as the sound of my own words retching so clumsily from my throat.



And I don’t come down from my room; not anymore.



Once upon a time, I liked to be outside. Once upon a time, I liked people. A person. Once, we walked the back streets of down town and he kissed me under the bridge on 2nd Avenue, my back against the graffiti on the wall as his echoing whispers made me realize how profound such profanity can be.



Once upon a time I sang songs, and somehow every one of them molded themselves to his form in my mind. I don’t know if I remember them now, the molded songs; I haven’t sung any of them in so long.



I only know one for sure; the one my phone sings when he texts me. It’s playing now.



I miss you. He says. I miss him, too. But all I say is, I’m sorry.

I love you. He replies. I love him, too, but again I say, I’m sorry.

Am I ever going to see you? He asks. I begin picking at the scabs on my leg.



Not for a while, probably. I respond. I don’t want him to see me like this. And I don’t plan to be anything else any time soon.



You have to let me see you. I can help. I can at least be there for you. You don’t have to talk; just sit with me?



He’s trying, he really is. I know he is. I wish he wouldn’t. I wish he wouldn’t force me to break his heart. He knows better; he knows I’m a hopeless case.



I want to tell him, Don’t you see I’ll leave you bleeding? Get so close our wounds touch and start to grow together, heal to each other. The scab will form hard, and then we’d better tear apart quick or scar tissue will grow and then cutting that bond—and it will be cut—will prove far too painful. Recovery time too long, risk of infection too great. And the scar it would leave...one so thick that years from now it’d still ache when the weather’s right. I know that. Known it all along, every time. Knew I wouldn’t stay close enough to conjoin. I’m nothing like you think I am; nowhere, nowhere nowhere even close. Don’t you see I’ll leave you bleeding? Bleeding out.

But I want to say as little as possible; keep the text to one page in length. How do you break a heart—sever forever all arteries that pulse hope—in one-hundred and sixty characters? I’ll try.



I’m sorry; wish I could. I type and letters flicker onto the screen. But even if I did do everything you want I could never make you happy. I would drag you down. I can’t do that. I am so sorry. Goodbye.

I rise from my place on the floor, leaving my phone behind. It is so cold in me, and my rumpled bed looks like it might provide at least some false sense of solace. It is hard to breathe with the covers pulled down tight over my head, but I stay there anyway.



His song plays—muffled tones rising up from the floor, pushing their treble-tendrils between the bed sheets to wrap around my eardrums; poking at the wrinkles in my brain to set loose any memories caught there. I let it play; let it poke and prod. I won’t read the words that prompted the music. I don’t want to know. I won’t go downstairs in the morning for breakfast; I won’t let my mother drag me to therapy.



Because I have nothing left to say, not to anyone. Except God. Maybe I'll talk to Him.