The more you hold of a person's heart, the harder you can break it. If you do it properly, you can watch it happen in their eyes, even as their fractured smile breaks the surface of their pain, trying to assure you they're okay. If you do it just right, you can feel each and every shard come apart between your fingers. If you do it really right, you'll keep the smallest piece, the piece that ought to fit right in the centre of their heart, for yourself; you'll curl your fingers tightly around it like a shield, the tiniest and most tender part of them, to remind yourself exactly what you have done, and exactly what you have taken from them every single time it cuts into your fingers.

I have only had to do this once in my life. I suppose I should be thankful that I haven't had to do it more than that, but I'm not. Because I'd rather it was twenty people than the one person it was. Because I had broken the heart of something so pure, so kind; a angel if you will, that I was surprised I wasn't dropped directly into Hell.

But maybe this was my Hell.
Having to remember the light leave my very best friend's face as I told her I didn't want her like that. I just wanted to pour acid into my brain and forget. Forget it all.

But I would never forget.
Maybe this was my Hell.

It's funny how great songs and films talk about the pain of heartbreak; but no-one ever mentions what it's like on the other side. None of them ever tell you how it feels to watch someone's face crumple as you crush their heart between your fingers. Not one of them describes what it's like to hear the quiver in their voice as they assure you they're okay, to watch their mouth move around the shape of a smile, trying to remember how it feels to laugh, when their eyes have lost their sparkle. And I've never heard a song explain the way it feels when your own heart tears a little with the hurt of seeing someone you care about in pain because of you, of how impossible it is to need comfort from the one you have just crushed and all because you have crushed them.

Maybe this was my hell.