I sit in the dark letting the sounds of Saviors “Rise against” pump through my noise cancelling headphones. Next I listen to Three Days Grace “Just Like You” followed by “You’re Going Down” by Sick Puppies. I’m usually not this pissed off but this day is different. Next to me on the bed is the cell phone that delivered me the bad news. “I’m sorry, but we’re breaking up. This time forever. Love Ashley” I feel the heat burning down into my heart. I pick up a picture frame from the side of the bed. It was a gift from her and it has a bible verse inscribed on it with our names. “Love is gentle, love is kind. Love is forever yours and mine.” I shatter it in half over my knee glass and all and let the blood from my hands run down to the carpet. So much for forever. The pain feels good for some reason though and the anger is justified. I loved her two years and did everything I could to be the perfect guy. Not it’s all for naught. I spend the next hour tearing down the pictures and burning the memories one by one in my wastebasket, letting the photos smolder in the bottom until they turn into ashes. Then I just lay on my bed and cry until I fall asleep.

The next day is no better except I have to work. I have nobody to text and although people try to text me I have nothing to say back to them. All the apologies and “I’m sorry’s” people send don’t make anything better. I go by two weeks with this, not living but not dead either. I don’t move, I try not to breathe. There is just a burning feeling in the pit of my stomach; an explosion I’m trying so hard to hold in. My mind is grappling between sanity and the mindset of a killer, switching every second. I could kill right now, myself or another person and not care. I’m so angry. I feel the sweat roll off my forehead, if only she knew what she had done to me. To strip the good of man all the way down to a monster takes effort. To blacken heart that was full of love and compassion takes time and a solid strike to the chest. She did it though and I’m left with an inferno raging inside. I flash back in forth between my thoughts and reality and my eyes roll into the back of my head, revealing the white soullessness hidden behind them.

I collapse down on all fours, writhing in a pain that literally eclipses anything I have ever felt. The last drops of compassion and caring are being squeezed out of my heart and turned into hate. The last threads that hold my heart together are being torn apart slowly. I am literally being turned into the perfect example of madness, and I know I have only seconds before it consumes me. The threads continue to sever in my heart, and I subconsciously reach for what I know is my last chance to come out alive. Ironically it is a self-destruct, hidden in the core between my mind and heart. My mind’s eye reaches for the button that will implode me as blackness closes in from all four sides. Everything slows down and for a second it looks like madness and anger just might win over me. Then, a millisecond before the last thread snaps, the tiny shred of good left presses the button.

The reaction is instantaneous. It starts small, but it gets bigger and bigger. The fire that had sat in me growing for so long is finally erupting. It charges from the base of my stomach then fully engulfs the heart which is still being held together by that single thread. It rushes up my throat and out my mouth in a huge flash of yellow and red. Slowly it consumes me, first my head, then my chest. Eventually it passes my waist and finally goes all the way down to my feet. My whole body is simply laying there on my bedroom floor, burning so hot that nobody could ever get close to it. Finally the flames begin to subside, leaving a pile of hot ashes. The ashes stay there for weeks, cooling and hardening to become what can only be described as a cocoon. Finally, after weeks, a crack appears. Then a set of fingers pops through, then a whole arm. Slowly, like a baby bird, I break my way out of the cocoon. I’m dressed in all white, my skin in pure and unburned. There is one blemish though, the scar that runs over my heart. It cuts too deep to ever heal back perfectly. I realize that I still love her, and although I will always wish I could be with her, I realize that right now that isn’t an option. Until she comes back though, or until the day I can find someone else who can heal these scars, I will carry them like badges of honor, a symbol to myself that I can be reborn.