The Music Hall

I stand in the hall and watch. Disgusted? Possibly. I really can't say what this is.

I'm just stuck here. Watching.

And though my heart has drained every aspect of emotion, leaving me an empty vessel once again, I find myself behaving as the love-smitten girl I was just last week. To the bystander I have not changed. I still pine for him the way I did before, the way, apparently, I always will.

But this is not so. I plea with myself to show it.

He reacts the same, he speaks the same. He glances back my way. The same.

And I fidget the same, I attempt humorous, planned jokes the same. I'm awkward all the same.

But really I am not the same, oh I could never be that person again; but standing there I feel it all coming back, aside from my lack of heart in the matter. I'm not... I'm not in love with him any more.

That frail cardboard box I had willed myself to make sturdy finally faultered under my weight. I spilled to the concrete and looked up in his eyes. And I didn't feel it. It was finally gone.

I walked to my car, a previously self-composed song ringing back through my mind:

"And I lost/ what I had/ and it's not coming back./ I guess it's time/ to let go./
Now he/ is gone,/ it's all been said and done,/ and I'm not in his heart no more."

But the words had changed: "Now he/ is gone,/ it's all been said and done,/ and he's not in my heart no more."

I suppose it took till today to finally emurge from that box for good, to finally look at the crumpled cardboard and realize that I couldn't just stand it back up and make it better again. It truly wasn't what I wanted. It never had been. And seeing that, I took him out of me forever. Finally waking up to what had been there all along.

Or maybe it's his haircut.

Maybe I can't love him with his hair so short.