Failure to Detonate

Today you said the words “I’m seeing a girl…”. My pulse quickened, my muscles tensed, my eyes involuntarily snapped shut as I braced for the impact I had been waiting years to endure.

It never came.

One eye opened slowly, timid, certain that seeing this new reality would mean seeing my own lifeless body, finally dead from the pain of losing you.

But there was nothing.

My heart rate slowed.

120. 100. 70.

I took a deep breath, surprised to find that oxygen still filled my lungs.

In. Out.

The tightness in my chest unraveled. The bomb you left behind was faulty all along. I am still alive. Unbroken by you. Living fully, despite you.

So here we are, baby. We are finally nothing. Nothing but strangers on opposite sides of a planet. Strangers who once shared a life. You are there. I am here. And I can breathe.

Finally.