An Apology I’ll Never Make

“What happens when people open their hearts?”
“They get better.”

Haruki Murakami, Norwegian Wood

You can see the frustration and sadness consuming me by how I look at you, and that makes me vulnerable.

I have always been able to mask my emotions, but you can see right through me, and that makes me vulnerable.

I am an expert when it comes to masking sentiment I don’t want to feel, but my heart skips a beat when you look in my direction, and that makes me vulnerable.

When your gaze meets mine, the walls I have spent years building fall in an instant. That makes me vulnerable.

It’s you, darling, it’s you. You make me vulnerable, you leave me defenseless. You’ve destroyed this person. The one I rebuilt from the scraps I collected in all the times I was broken. I thought I had it all figured out until you came crashing into my life with the most beautiful smile plastered across your face, tearing it all down. I am terrified, god, I am petrified to learn that someone knows how to do that again, because I can’t bare another round of inevitable heart shatter.

Now I avoid your eyes in the halls. When we talk I look right past you, so when you see what I’m feeling you see nothing at all. Then when my heart breaks it will be at my own hand and not at the one of someone I couldn’t help but love.