Originally published on Ali Isaac’s blog, but reproduced here because this morning, I feel like death.
The painting is by Gyula Derkovis

āI wish Iād never met you.ā
Perhaps you said more, but I didnāt wait to hear. I fled to the door, flung it open and raced down the stairs. Didnāt grab a coat or put on a proper pair of shoes. Just ran. Outside, the street was as packed as it was every Friday evening. People hurrying home from work, people on a night out mooning along. Anonymous people. Traffic. Pushchairs and shopping trolleys getting in the way. Fury. Heartbreak.
āI wish Iād never met you.ā
The words hammer inside my head like the clapper of a bell.
Ding dong ding dong.
Evening is falling. Chill. Damp. I wrap my arms tight across my chest. People had been looking at me. No coat, clapped out shoes, tear-streaked face, wild eyes. I hated them. So I ran to this bridge. Melodramatic, I know. Not that I intended to throw myself in the river. I donāt think. It just seemed the right place to brood, unburden, cast adrift.
āI wish Iād never met you.ā
With my back to the crowds, face hidden behind a veil of long hair, staring into the current swollen and brown with the autumn rain, I sob. Your voice rises above the rushing of the water, the footsteps on the flagstones, the chatty, chirpy conversations of people in that moment I loathe. Your voice, sharp as a knife, slicing through the heartstrings.
Your voice.
āI wish Iād never met you.ā
I turn, hair flying, cold, bitterly cold. Fury raises my hand.
āAnd I wishāā
You grab my wrist and you are here, in front of my face, filling my vision with those eyes I loved so well.
āI wish Iād never met you, because it hurts so much. Because you have my heart and I canāt live without a heart.ā
āLiar! You never gave me anything of yours!ā
āThereās an emptiness inside where it was. Itās gone. I wish Iād never met you, because if you leave me, Iāll die.ā
You pull me close and kiss my hair then my forehead then my eyes. You kiss away each tear. And I know that this is not the end of the hurting. Perhaps it will never end. But perhaps it will.
āI canāt leave you, can I? And trail your ghost behind me forever? Iām glad I met you, because I love you and I can bear the pain of love.ā
āCome home,ā you say, āand forgive me.ā
I donāt take your hand, afraid you might flinch away, interpret my gesture as possessiveness.
āIāll come home.ā
āAnd forgive me?ā
āForgiveness is easy,ā I say. āHating you for a lifetime would be too hard.ā