The greatest tragedy I’ve ever experienced seemed to have a habit of keep breaking my heart. 

 

He wasn’t the only one to blame though, I also made a habit of letting him do it. Our love was a crime scene neither of us wanted to flee or could. We stood together, still as rocks, as if the clock has stopped, hand-in-hand, guilty as charged. 

 

A love like this was never meant to be served as a life sentence. The barbwires and the bars could only keep a wronged, broken heart locked up for so long. Someone would eventually wise up, plot a fool-proof escape plan and run away with a valuable life lesson, or at the very least, an optimistic, heartfelt anecdote. 

 

Well, ideally anyway. 

 

I remember him very clearly, nearly two decades later. I remember handcuffing my heart to his and threw away the key. I remember the love I felt for him - a fever that won’t break. Others called it a prison, I called it the only place I knew how to exist in: a home. 

 

After all, you can’t expect too much from a young girl who’s doing time for her very first love. 

 

The day he fled, freeing himself from the burden of being my bad habit, though he was kind enough to leave the door open behind him, he forgot one minor detail: I had already thrown away the key to the handcuffs that chained me close to his heart. I didn’t know I would ever need an escape plan from the only plan I ever knew. Though it wasn’t his intention to become my life sentence, somehow, he ended up lasting a lifetime. As I moved on from a young girl to becoming a full-fledge woman, still, l remained a prisoner even though neither the bars nor the warden is still around. 

 

Alone in this same old crime scene, I stand here still as a rock as if the clock has stopped ticking.  There’s no getaway car, all I can do is wait for the inevitable - getting caught red-handed as a broken woman, a lifelong prisoner whose heart has fled away with the boy who didn’t intend to be my life sentence.