The Miracle of Heartbreak
Ask anyone their favorite personal love story, and piece all the little moments together. Let them tell you about their invitation to dance, with every step shuffled into a chance. How every saccharin word exchanged were lyrics lying out of their cage. How the crescendo of ecstacy found in their tango-for-two was joy that looked to good to be true. The applaud they recieved for the wearily sung encore, and the performance of distance that left their hearts torn, while the rain poured. The last cue, with “I love you” weaved into their sad grateful bows, a midnight show ending soon as the spotlight’s contentment howls.
Let them close the curtains on a book with finished chapters, a story with missing characters. Watch the ghosts of their tears leave their eyes, because every tear they’ve shed has already died. Smell the old scent of wilted roses, the romantic kind that still tickles their noses. Remember the smile they held, because it once belonged to someone who held them through their sunrises. Drown yourself in a tale that is not your own, even if you’ll never understand the bliss they’ve built in the process.
Listen to their heartbreak like an old song we’ve looped for ages. Every beat, every melody, every chord, every harmony — the many ticks of the metronome, bound to memory. They still dance to this broken playlist, a mixtape they fostered without hesitation. All the songs written by musicians they once sang with, the sounds of their instruments so present in every section, the youthfulness of yesterday none of us couldn’t possibly resist — now a frequency they’ve lost, dead silence from a dead radio station.
They danced with their partners to the beat, until the dance starts to hurt their feet. Their music losing its power, their gazes losing desire, their precious places burning in the fire — their hopes and dreams made for two by two, ready to retire.
Indeed, they have lived, loved, and laughed, until they died, hated, and cried. We are their audience in a theater they built, one that shines against the sorrow, standing in glory and pride.
You’re free to wonder how one finds happiness in the ruins where they lost it. What pleasure is felt from an excavation of a life you once held so dearly, especially if you are not the tourist, but its lonely guide? Has all its traps been sniffed out, or have they fallen victim to the swinging axes made to reopen wounds? Has all its treasure been unearthed, or did they bury themselves alive along with memories as precious as diamonds and gold? Haven’t they had enough of a place once worshipped by two, now maintained by one? What else is there to retrieve, if not grief, regret, and words left unsaid?
Realize that loss, like love, is a Alexandrian-sized library filled to the brim with books containing infinite pages. Its contents filled with stories of old jests and foolish tensions. Its questions and problems are formulas, old romances spelled in equations. Its answers and solutions, all proven to be true, none of it qualified for deprecation. Its histories filled with accounts and forgotten dates, kept hidden before the proof of lovely memories breaks. Its vacuum-like space, locking every echo from visitors who once stayed. They have read every single leaf, from the kids section up to encyclopedias, authored by none other than those who have left after saying goodbye.
Now, with this knowledge, they build happiness relentlessly. Brick by brick, with utmost precision for every decision, a meticulous eye for fabricated perfection. They have become architects of pain, building monuments of their bliss with the driftwood once buried, now stained. All measurements precise to its meanings. All materials sourced from our longings. Their unwavering resolve to craft peace, despite all of their findings.
These are what we could call the miracles we find in heartbreak. The ultimatum of freedom which we allow ourselves to make. No funerals, no regrets, no graves, no mournings, and not even a single wake. We simply trust in an off-chance miracle that the tomorrow is something that is ours to take.
After all, change guarantees losses as it does gains. An optimistic way of looking at a glass that is neither empty nor full, but rather broken, no longer whole.
So we pick up the pieces along with our pace, and once more, we build miracles in its place.
