Frailty

The thoughts and feelings that follow a broken heart.

Frailty

by Austin Cates



Staring into the broken frame of a perfect memory, my eyes beg to weep. They plead to finally let loose all the pain and grief that has bottled up inside me these lasting weeks. I hear their request but I shake it away with great effort. I will not allow myself to crumble under the weight, I will not allow myself to break.

The bottle props up my shell of a body and the cigarettes ease my fragmented conscience into a state of faux bliss. The lacerations upon the battered mass of tissue beneath my chest run deep, and no length of thread could ever stitch them closed. They will forever bleed with pangs of a long dead love.

Subconscious hurricanes plague my nights, soaking my sheets with a cold sweat. Just as a cracked record struggles to play a song, the grooves of my mind struggle to move on to the next lyrics. They repeat over and over again with ferocious aggravation.

The smell of a cheap, amber liquid consistently hangs on my breath and the stale Turkish menthol coats the cotton upon my flesh. Gone are the musky spurts of a small, black bottle that now collects dust. Tufts of unkempt hair jut out in odd places and volumes of unspoken truths droop beneath my scarlet eyes.

My eyes, again, beg to weep. This time the effort to shake away their plea is even more agonizing. The ache burrows deep within me, taking up residence in my bones. I wonder, if I break them, if I shatter every bone, could I pull out that trifling need to weep and cast it aside?

Slowly, a guitar strums to life in my stereo. The song projects a smile in the theater of my memory, forcing my mouth open and my lungs to take a brief pause. The world fades into oblivion, leaving nothing but the song playing as a soundtrack to the smile. Lips drawn into joy, the smile drains my life away at a pace most furious.

Evolutionary instincts move my fist through the stereo and the guitar ceases. Glass protrudes from cracked, bloody knuckles but the pain is of no comparison to what lies within. No, that which lingers inside has no words, it simply is.

Something this deep, this most primordial of emotions, is not capable of being described with different arrangements of sounds. It demands to be felt, entirely, throughout the body, mind and soul.

One more time, my eyes beg to weep. As I try to muster the will to fight it, I realize I can't. There is nothing left. I've exhausted my resources and depleted what energy flowed through my veins. Then, like my heart so many nights before, I break...