Battle of the Broken Hearts

He told me about the war
between the heartbroken
and the heartbreakers
that afternoon,
whispering the words in my ear
as we stood ankle-deep in seawater
and his lips kissed mine
the way the warm sun kissed
the gentle waves.
His toes wiggled against my feet
under the sand
until they assumed their usual position,
covering mine
in an act of possession
that I usually liked,
although for some reason
I rebelled against it that day
until his soothing voice assured me
that he was only trying to keep me
from joining the war
that he'd seen too much of.

He must have known that would distract me;
my next breath begged
to know more about the fight
that everyone had begun to call
the Battle of the Broken Hearts.
He described it
as a hateful war fueled by love,
where no one could escape
that which destroys us all
because everyone suffers the pain of love
and rejoices in its counterpart hate.
He said it sounded like
gunshots echoing through the street,
except instead of bullets
the sound was of an arrow
sent from Cupid's fickle bow,
completing one heart
even as it broke another
and letting the second shatter
like a pane of glass
at the time when only moonlight was reflected
off the sharpened fragments.

He held me close
and made me promise
never to leave him,
because if I did
he would have no choice
but to join the brokenhearted in war.
My heart made foolish by love,
I promised.

But he didn't,
and he knew that
when he joined the heartbreakers
without a second thought.
He became a soldier on one side
and I became a nurse
for the side of the ones left behind,
helping to fix their broken hearts
because I was far from mending my own.

It was a week
before we met on the battlefield,
our eyes boring into each others'
as love crashed down around us
and hate manifested
in the hearts of the forgotten,
but it was easy to tune all that out
when he was there.
In that instant,
I considered abandoning my side
to be with him again.
But I was determined
not to become the casualty of war
I knew that I would be
when he broke my heart again,
and so I turned around
without looking back.
It was his turn to learn
what it was like to be heartbroken.

As I left him,
I tried to convince myself
that it was his fault,
that neither of us
would be in this situation
if it hadn't been for him.
But it was my fault too,
for not making him promise,
for not making him stop.
And then,
throwing a fleeting glance
over my shoulder,
I saw a body falling
where he had stood moments ago,
a body that looked too familiar
even from this distance...

I almost ran to him,
almost let the flying bullets
perforate my body
in a macabre painting of death.
I didn't.
Instead,
I crumpled to the ground,
letting my heart
rip itself farther apart.

In that moment,
I think I finally understood
what it truly meant
to be brokenhearted.