When it reached the end of the after, I didn't feel myself crumbling.
I felt myself dissolving into a smaller, inner piece of myself that I never knew existed.
I felt the floors collapse under me, I felt the walls cave in.

I tried my best to rationalize everything that you had just said.
I tried to rearrange all of your fumbled words. I somehow felt that if I could reach into a hat filled with your emotions, I'd be able to pick out what wouldn't hurt me; that I would be able to figure an answer out to our equation that never came to be.

It hurt when I had to tell you I no longer felt the same.
It hurt when I had to give you the cold shoulder and watch as an icy glaze came over your eyes.

You slowed down.
Your movements became sluggish, and your words floated in space with no where to go.

I couldn't hear a word you said. Nor could I hear mine.

I was running round in love. I ignored the many times you called, I ignored the places and people that reminded me of you.

The fact that I no longer loved you didn't hurt.
What truly hurt was to not feel anything at all in that moment that was supposed to tear me apart.

I waited and waited for something to pull at the depths of my heart.
I wanted something, anything to throw a lifeboat toward me and bring me to the surface of the water.

I waited and waited.

Nothing came.