Burning For Her

It was cold; I remember that much for sure. I know I was not in the mood to think. All I know is that I hurt. It was going on more than a year and a half that I thought of her. I could not escape her, and here I was about to end it all; about to end everything I had been through. The snow was biting at my feet, my hands a bit numb. Leave it to my friends to turn something like this into a joke. They were laughing and I was breaking. I had come as low as I could at this point. Everything of mine belonged to her. My thoughts, my actions, even my private sanctum of sleep was in her hands. I had given her everything that I could. I had to do it; as much as I wanted to turn and run, it was something that needed to happen. I had to end it all.
We were standing in small circle around the fire pit, frozen with snow shin deep. I held everything in my hand, the notes, the picture, and everything else that reminded me of her. My writing, time, and most of all my heart was there. Being wet, there was nothing to do but set them on fire one at a time, hoping to catch the others. It was my job, to end that part of my life, to rip away the cancer gnawing away at my soul. My hands shaking I raised the first paper in one hand, and brought the lighter up to meet it with the other. My heart searing like the paper before me, and all the while, they were laughing. Laughter, what a horrible distraction, it takes away the meaning to those who cannot really handle a situation. No wonder people always laugh when they are upset. It isn’t that I was really bothered by their amusement I was just shocked to see that no one saw what this meant to me, or that they just did not know how to react at all. The first thing to remove any trace of, was that forsaken poem.

My proclamation of eternal love, that was to be the first to go. I no longer wanted or needed it. I desired to hate it, as I desired to hate her. I watched as the paper browned and crisped, catching it ablaze was going to prove to be more difficult than I thought it would, just as letting go would be. The others soon started seeing the “difficulty” I was having and were jumping at the bit to get a piece of my shattering heart. One moment I possessed everything the next I was dividing myself amongst the others to destroy. They were laughing and I just wanted peace. Dancing, burning, melting pain, their laugh I remember all of it. We managed finally to bring it all to its limits, but somehow I was still unsatisfied. It was not what I thought it would be. My desire for the dramatic or the theatric proved not to work. It was nothing but a pipedream.

We placed it all in the pit, and I stood there watching my hopes of peace flash before my eyes, nothing but an intangible dream. Nothing can be realized without time. I failed to realize that time was the healer, not theatrics or dramatics, but time. This was supposed to be my lesson that day, and unfortunately, it was a lesson that I would learn as I tried for the next several weeks to remove her from my mind.

The remnants of the papers had finally charred and turned to ash. I stood a few minutes longer looking into where my heart had lain. The rest of the group had made up their minds that the task was complete and so they walked justifiably indoors. I stood there looking into the pit, my hopes scorched and seared. I had thought that after this, great burning, that I would feel at peace. I felt that I was entitled to continue with my life, although all I could feel was the emptiness of where something great had once rested.

It was cold; I remember that much for sure. I remember that at the end of it all I was smiling. It wasn’t a smile of joy, but that of irony. With the others inside, I just stood there. Even after going through all of this, I was not my own. I smiled, because at the end of it all, when a person doesn’t know how to react to something they have nothing else to do but laugh.

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