Your Ex-Lover is Dead

You might recognize the song. It's grown silently popular in some group streams. It's by a band called Stars, an awesome group from Canada. Here's a link:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=55FMOJMhV9s


It's one of my favorite songs ever which  is why, at 3 am a few weeks ago, I decided to write a short story using it's lyrics. This is the result.

Your Ex-Lover is Dead

Looking back, I’m not sorry. I loved you- as much as anyone could love another I believe. But we grew apart. We grew cold. Our hearts died. We still went through the routine every morning and every night, waking next to each other but no longer finding the surge of joy looking into each other’s eyes in the rising sunlight. 

We met again two nights ago. A friend introduced us to one another, as if we weren’t already familiar. As I saw you walk over I smiled at you two and said that I thought we’d met before (I believe in that instant it started to pour). The three of us sat in the small coffee shop, and I suggested that we go somewhere. Do something. Like old times.

We captured a taxi, despite all the rain. Our mutual friend didn’t accompany us, something about an urgent meeting to attend. You and I ended up driving mostly in silence across Pont Champlain, although not an awkward silence. The water seemed to go on without end, just as my heart so long ago. I used to think it would never die… 

As we drove on to no destination, there was little interaction between us. At some point you finally said that I seemed sad. Said that I had seemed sad most of the trip 

You thought I was sad. I was trying to remember your name.


******

I don’t think I every truly loved you. You tried to reach deep, take my heart and sweep me away, but you couldn’t get in. Something always got in the way. I knew you loved me, that look in your eye was a giveaway. And I could see when it died. We woke up in the morning, and your spark was gone. Somehow though, that scar you left is a fleck on my porcelain skin, forever apparent.

Now that you’re outside, so far away and unused to “us”, you see all the beauty that you took for granted. You act differently than you did then. More real. You see now what you couldn’t before…

Repent all your sin.

I didn’t love you. I couldn’t- you made it too hard. Especially after what you did. Before I had the illusion of love, and after there was nothing. Nothing but an indecisive shine in my eye.


******

There’s nothing left afterwards. In the end, it’s just time and a face that you lose. I chose to feel it so long ago, and yet you couldn’t choose. It’s been years now, we’ve both moved on. Moved on in the hopes of something more. Something less deceptive. One of us will find it.

I’ll write you a postcard, I’ll send you the news from a house down the road from real love.

In the beginning, that’s what I thought we had found. We realized together that I was wrong, of course. 

Live through this, and you won’t look back…


*******

There’s something I’d like to say, so I’ll be brave. You were what I wanted. Tall, handsome, gentle, soft. I gave what I gave- what I could give anyway. I didn’t love you, true, but I thought you were as close as I could ever get, so I went all in. I still believe you to be what I wanted. What I want. I’m not sorry I met you, despite what happened. But I’m not sorry It’s over. We had our thing, and it’s time to move on now. What’s the word they use for these occurrences? Closure. That night was closure.
I’m not sorry there’s nothing to save…


*******

Babe, I always wanted you. You know I loved you back then, and I should never have done anything to hurt you. You were everything that I wanted, and still want. Beautiful, stunning even, elegant and graceful. And you always smiled, even through the hard times. You always smiled that thin lipped, adorable smile of yours. Of course I’m not sorry we met, but it had to end sometime. We weren’t right for each other, and we both knew it. Love doesn’t change that. I used to think that I’d like another chance at it, maybe see if we could start things up again- this time with what was missing before. But after that night, I knew that wasn’t possible. I’m not sorry there’s nothing to save…

I write my thoughts in memory of you, my love. It’s hard to think you’re gone now. In a sense, it’s as If you’re dead. I know that we will never meet again, it just wasn’t meant to be. This thought utterly breaks my heart, but I know this is how it must be.
We are alive to each other in nothing but memory.