One Thousand Sorries

The fear of never loving again is what trickled down Gilbert’s eyes. People would say she had stabbed him in the heart. But Gilbert knew it wasn’t exactly like that. That tear, crystallising as it formed on the tip of his eyelashes, took more than its molecular form. Wet and heavy. Fluid yet structured. And to blink would mean to let go and to let fall. But he didn’t want to. He wanted it all kept in. Because, to Gilbert, it wasn’t a stab in the heart. It was a dose of poison. Administered directly through his veins into his soul.

Out of necessity, he blinks. The tear that is more than its molecular form breaks from his eyelash. Milliseconds pass. An eternity between the moment it leaves his eye to it splashing on her submissive cheek. Her eyes are filled with tears. She didn’t know the dosage was so high. Gilbert reels back. Tries to. He can’t detach from her because she holds on so tightly. So lovingly. But he can not put the two together. The poison — the antidote.

‘Sorry,’ she says. Sorry, again and again. She says it to a beat. It is spellbinding. Like a drummer’s mayhem. He says it too. Again and again. She doesn’t know why he says it. She applied the poison. She did the deed. She doesn’t understand. Maybe later. But he is saying sorry for so many other things. To face the fear that you can’t forgive. To face the fear that you can’t overcome fear. To know that the teardrop was more than its molecular form. It contained the many designs and intricacies of his love for her. Broken now. Splashed on her submissive cheek. Her spurts of sorry are lost in his void. She will be saying sorry for a long time.