Excerpt: Bleeding Hearts

A girl once ripped out my heart and left me bleeding. Sometimes I think I’m still bleeding. Not that I blame her. Not anymore at least. God, that sounds like such a cliché. It is a cliché. But the thing about clichés is that sometimes they happen. Sometimes they’re true. Events never seem like a cliché when they’re happening. It’s only afterwards when you look back that you see the repetitiveness, the predictability, the usuals that infallibly appear in so many books, movies, songs. But just because it’s a cliché, doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt. Your views don’t change for the simple reason that these things have happened to so many other people. The pain is still there and all you can do is let everything come pouring out in a flash flood of tears. All you can do is cry yourself a story. My memories are so vivid, but they twist and overlap in my brain, colliding and expanding like the shapes in a kaleidoscope. Long black hair swishing across pale white skin. Eyes blank and staring. A tiny hand clutched in mine, slipping away. Screams. Cold embraces. Crimson dribbling on to the dirt. Grey sweaters. Gleaming knife in the darkness. Face pressed against marble tiles. Smiles, frowns, lips parting, speaking. Electra I miss you. Electra I love you. Loved. No, love. Loved, love, I don’t know anymore. I don’t know anything anymore except what I remember. Here is my story. It is written in tears, in blood, in kisses. It is built from hate, from love, from pain, sorrow, joy. I have to tell these things to someone, even if that someone is blank faced sheets of paper. Words will come tumbling out, tripping, tangling, telling. I’ll cry myself a story. If I’m never going to stop crying, I might as well use my tears for something.