loss

Heartbreakers: a Short Fiction

“A love story told backwards, starting from the ending.”

trigger warning: begins with a vague implication of suicide.

I don’t know how to tell you this, and maybe it’s better I don’t.

And I know one day, I’d break your heart.

Maybe it’s better I don’t.

I’m lying in a hospital bed, a mixture of medicine and whiskey in my stomach. I’m dying, Fiona.

I used to write you letters after you left me. They weren’t exactly love letters. Well, I’m not sure you ever read them, but they were begging for forgiveness, Fiona. I know I messed up along the way. I see where I screwed up now.

I sent you little photographs I took. I don’t know if you ever looked at them, Fiona, but I took small photos. Random things here & there. Pictures I thought you’d like. The moon. A watch tower. Sometimes, I’d include things I’d find on walks. Bird feathers. Business cards floating around, then stomped on by passing cars.

Anyway. I thought about us a lot before I ended up here in the hospital.

About our story.

The way you slammed the door the last night we were together. The way the stars blinked as I tried to hide my tears when I told you to get out of my house. I watched you leave. You didn’t have a car or a bus pass, but you held your chin high and walked away.

I wonder where you walked to, but you never came back like I thought you would. We had fought one last time. Screamed one last time over some stupid thing. I accused you of cheating. You told me I was stupid and suspicious.

Fiona, you were right. I was stupid and suspicious.

You were too lovely to be mine.

I knew I couldn’t keep you. I was bound to destroy something so beautiful.

I remember the glint in your eye. The hurt look in your green eyes.

A part of me wanted to rush over, to beg forgiveness, but I barrelled on anyway like an idiot, accusing you.

It was just an accusation before I shouted.

But before the accusations, before the shouting, we were in bed together, it was nice. My breath was like cigarettes and whiskey. I hadn’t known it at the time. It was just us holding one another, watching some black-and-white film. Some classic movie you begged me to see. And when I turned to kiss you, you asked me to brush my teeth.

My feelings were too delicate, I guess.

I didn’t know the brutish combination of cigarettes and whiskey.

I could have just brushed them instead of turned into a monster.

But even before the film, there was a girl who loved a boy.

She held him near and whispered away his ghosts – the ones who troubled him like that of his former friends who didn’t understand him or his mother who told him nobody would love him.

And Fiona, I wanted to ask you to marry me one day. I truly did.

And we went out on dates. I took you out and showed you off. You with your lustrous dark hair and beautiful eyes like jade. You whose hair I brushed at bedtime, after making love.

It was backwards and all out of order. I fell in love with you the moment I saw you, but I couldn’t because you were too lovely and I knew one day, you’d break my heart.

Isabelle Palerma

Vanishing Season: a Poem

Did you decide that winter
is your vanishing season?
That the frost is where you take your leave?
I have starved on less,
but you swore I wouldn’t be hungry
this January.

So, why do all my pockets have holes
and my heart vacates like a hotel room
after a weeklong conference?

So, why am I alone, holding hands
with memories and begging stars
to tell you
goodbye doesn’t mean forever?

Isabelle Palerma

Memories: a Poem

Forgive me.
Memories are a wound &
I must carry them.
Nostalgia lies close to my skeleton bones,
and yet my past is clouded
like a mirror with its shine worn off.
Whenever I try to recall the small details of you,
it’s like gazing at a blurry photograph taken
many years ago
of someone I once loved.

& remembering your voice,
though I could listen to it the rest of my days,
is like hearing a phonograph underwater.

The way it falters in my mind
as though you have a stammer,
though I know you never stuttered.
It’s my mind that creates the gaps.

Memories are a wound &
I must carry them.

As I carry them, the past becomes less certain
and I wonder if my memories are true
or perhaps just something I wrote down
in a book.

Storytellers don’t always make the most reliable narrators,
but even through the gauzy haze,
our memories glimmer with a whispering beauty.

Isabelle Palerma

A Cage for Your Heart, the Softness of Sadness, and the Gentle Lull of Love: a Poem

An architect constructed you a mansion
for your heart and you called it a cage.
He crafted each room with so much caution
and care.

The muscle nestled between your ribs
felt like a boulder I was incapable of swallowing,
I am a myth,
tugging on strings that have strangled me.

My fantasies were polished glass shards
shattered by laments and heartbreak.
Ancestors draped mirrors
with black organza in bereavement
after a loved one died.
The fabric is as light as a ghost,
so tell me,
how did I still I wake up with
bits of glass crunching beneath my feet?

The sadness was a fragile creature –
the weight of black organza –
and yet I am a myth,
desiring nothing more than to pull
the strings that choke me.

But it’s gentle sometimes,
sneaking in like a moth,
as soft as a ballerina’s skin
and barbed wire.

Our wires danced across the dance floor,
and if you watch,
we might just choke on the memory,
the softness of sadness, and
the gentle lull of love.

Isabelle Palerma

See You Later, Dear Friend

It’s been ten years since you died, but it’s been more than ten years since I’ve seen you last. I still see you in my dreams occasionally. The last time I saw you, you apologized to me, but I wasn’t sure why.

You said you were going to work on getting better. That you had hit rock bottom, and you never wanted to experience it again.

You took me to a bar in the city with paint splatters on the wall and we shared dinner. I think we held hands.

You told me what it felt like hitting your lowest of lows, waking up in your car with vomit all over you, not sure what had happened to you the night before.

When you hugged me, it didn’t feel like goodbye, but it was.

We used to talk on the phone as you painted your nails. I’d listen to the sirens in the distance and wonder if we lived different lives. If we could ever experience a world the same way.

I’d braid your hair on Friday nights; other girls would put your hair in pigtails, but I liked a single braid.

I remember lying my head on your chest, your hairy stomach soft underneath me. You never complained about the weight of me.

I remember you playing the guitar at night. I remember listening to Fleetwood Mac with you and thinking all our thoughts were worth writing down.

I never took a picture with you because I thought I was ugly, unphotogenic.

I remember you telling me you played me the guitar because you didn’t know the words to say.

It’s been ten years since you died, and even though I have a guitar, I still don’t know the words to say.

I never said goodbye.

She told me you loved me. That you always loved me. I must have hurt you because I laughed when you tried to kiss me the first time.

But now, you are buried and gone, and I’m here. You always played me “Wish You Were Here” by Pink Floyd. I guess I just wish you were here. I feel like we could talk all night and maybe I’d let you play me the guitar. And maybe you’d let me braid your hair.

It’s been too long, and I never said goodbye.