God Help the Child

You still believe heartbreak should burn like a star?”

“I do. But stars can explode, disappear. Besides, what we see when we look at them may no longer be there. Some could have died thousands of years ago and we’re just now getting their light. Old information looking like news.

What kind of love is it that requires an angel and only an angel for its commitment?

Youth being the excuse for that fortune-cookie love—until it wasn’t, until it became pure adult stupidity.

They will blow it, she thought. Each will cling to a sad little story of hurt and sorrow—some long-ago trouble and pain life dumped on their pure and innocent selves. And each one will rewrite that story forever, knowing the plot, guessing the theme, inventing its meaning and dismissing its origin. What waste. She knew from personal experience how hard loving was, how selfish and how easily sundered.

“It was perfect for a while, the two of us.”

“You lied? What the hell for?”

“So my mother would hold my hand!”

“What?”

“And look at me with proud eyes, for once.”

You should take heartbreak of whatever kind seriously with the courage to let it blaze and burn like the pulsing star it is unable or unwilling to be soothed into pathetic self-blame because its explosive brilliance rings justifiably loud like the din of a tympani.

Then he was certain that he not only held the night, he owned it, and if the night he held in his arms was not enough, he could always see starlight in her eyes.

Did it mean he was too tender to take the life of a disease-carrying insect but could happily ax the life of a child?

She’s gone now but who knows maybe I’ll see her again sometime.