AHandfulOfSincereApologiesBecauseIt'sTheBestICanDo

The words I had carefully laced in my apology had barely left my lips
When I looked into her eyes.
She said nothing.

Her lips quivered like she was facing her darkest fears
In a nightmare she couldn’t escape…
The pain, too much to place into words
And in that moment, time stopped.
And I swear…I swear I could hear her heart
Fighting against the confines of her ribcage
Yearning for emancipation
From every blow it had ever taken

Each bruise from every leap of faith into unknown arms
Every ‘I love you’ and ‘forever and always’ sugar coating ulterior motives
Every mistake.
Mistakes she blames herself for
Thinking they were her fault.
But they never were.

Her eyes doing backstrokes in an ocean
She held it in
Saving her tears in the piggy bank under her eyes
Already filled to capacity with every regret she ever had
She saves them, trying to refill the trust fund
That experience had slowly diminished.

And it hurt more than anything she could ever say.

Her muted emotions
Interspersed through the silence of her gaze
The sound reverberated off eardrums and hollow walls
Because sometimes, silence is the loudest sound you can make.

For every word she refused to say
I died inside a thousand times
And all I could say was…”I’m sorry”
And I meant it with every fibre of my existence
Not just for everything I’ve done wrong
But a universal apology

An “I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you that night”
Or “I’m sorry that somebody showed you the darkest side of men
And not the best that we have to give you.”
An “I’m sorry that my touch might remind you of his
And that he chained himself to your memories, and even the best of them can hurt”
“I’m sorry that even the most honest choose to hide behind the guise of a lie”
And “I’m sorry that my promises are fragile figurines
That I break like eye contact in staring contests because I’m afraid of getting lost in your eyes without breadcrumbs…”

But I always had the best intentions
Yet it breaks my heart that an apology is the best I can do.
I want to scream at the top of my lungs
Rage because I can do no better than to utter a few words
Words that anybody can say and not mean
I want to yell until you believe me that everything will be alright
That you are still perfect no matter what you hold against yourself
And what you’ve been through

And as I looked into her eyes
Tears ready to dive from her lashes
I realized that sometimes silence
Is the loudest sound you can make.