The Story of The End / A 12-Year-Late Goodbye

It was not a fair ending. What’s more, it wasn’t really an ending at all. After his father died, I was hospitalized. Within three weeks, he lost me, we lost each other, and I fully lost my mind. How can I grieve a breakup that never happened?

When I entered the psych ward, I swore I saw him everywhere. I knew he was watching; I now know that he was not. How can I let go of this tragedy when I was placed into a chamber of torture upon its arrival?

He moved back to Israel and I moved back home to be close to family in California. He was studying abroad when we met. For ten months, we slept in the same bed, shared gossip, and orgasmed in unison.

I have not loved romantically since the end of it all. Apparently, neither has he. Every few months, our video calls remind us both of this grim fact. The wound is as deep as the thin blankets of the plastic beds in Langley Porter psychiatric hospital. The video discussions are as full of static as the few forlorn moments with his long-missing father over the phone.

I am as wounded as a dying bee in a pool, gasping and writhing, until the chlorine detaches its abdomen from its brain, as it loses its capacity to fly. This is not a love story, because our time was cut short. This is merely a story of a perpetual lack of love; unremied by distant calls from countries apart. Ten years, and nothing has changed. Ten years, and my brain has finally healed, but my heart has not mended at all.