To the old lady who slapped me with her advice

January 3, 2018

To the old lady next to me,

I’m sorry I didn’t offer my seat yesterday, 2:08 in the afternoon at the train 146 on the way to Prague. I had nothing in my hands; no big trolleys, heavy baskets or untied boots, unlike you. You were lifting a sack of freshly harvested green beans on your back while holding the small hands of your granddaughter, if I’m not mistaken.

I was waiting for someone to offer his/her seat but no one did. I wanted to but I can’t, I’m sorry. I wasn’t carrying anything heavy except for my heart that had been broken numerous times lately. Except for this pumping machine in the middle of my body that releases no blood but pure hatred, pain, remorse and anxiety instead. At night, it stings the most like a hammer is pounding it into pieces. In the middle of sunset and sunrise, it aches big time, remembering the old times that my head was resting on the bareness of his chest.

Madame, I wasn’t carrying anything heavy except for this heart that was broken for countless times and still trying to find its happiness in someone else’s hands. What makes it unbearable I guess are the plasters that I put on it to at least rekindle the remaining fire that it has and to conceal the scar that shaped like his fist. He smashed it on the time that I am mostly dependent and unguarded.

There’s nothing specifically heavy in my body except for these sunken eyes that have been crying for nights. I was trying to sleep away all the pain in every memory that I remember, in every tea that I sip knowing that he no longer made it for me. The hazelnut brown eyes that cried ocean of tears that dance on my cheeks whenever I close them, whenever I imagine our hands intertwined in the middle of sunset and sunrise. My eyes aren't beautiful anymore because of the eyelashes that I forced to fall so I can have the wishes in each.

I wished for the two of us to stay the same, to remain the lovers that go on hiking on the 25th of December and the ones who play table games in the restaurant that we are much familiar with. I glance at the shelf that has been the witness of our love and romance. I wish for everything to remain as it is, to be the same lovers that others would envy.

Madame, on that exactly 2:08 in the afternoon at the train 146 on the way to Prague, I sat there with shaking knees and closed fists. I wanted to shout and punch the people around me. I was dying to scream his name and beg for him to comeback but I can’t. Instead, I stood up and offered my seat to you. “Take it, madame, you’re too old to stand up.”, I said. But, I was shocked when you told me “And you’re too dumb to depend your happiness in his smiles, stop crying and be the girl your mother wanted you to be.”

So I gathered myself and went on the first stop. Prague doesn’t deserve me anymore. I am too much for it and so for the boy who lives in there.

Moving on,

Silver