The Structure of Parting

by Karla Hirsch

Ekaterina Boltaga

PART I — THE LOSS

In this story, the reason is not relevant.

One day, the person you’ve shared gestures and words with for the last x years, is gone.

They left / you drove them away / they found a new life / they misplaced the keys.

The most outrageous versions of their leaving you, read like fictions: they went out to buy cigarettes and never came back / they joined a cult because life is overwhelming, babe / they’ve had a two-year affair with someone who’s twenty years younger than you and uses expressions like ‘mid’ and ‘rizz’ with a sincerity that astonishes you more than you can hate them. And now, they’re pregnant.

People offer to lend you an ear, but what they really want is to gossip.

Or do they? You reproach yourself for becoming bitter.

In the most scandalous version, the one where they went out to buy cigarettes and never came back AND joined a cult because life is overwhelming, babe AND confessed to having an affair, you never reproach yourself. You spend long evenings in pubs, oblivious to the cozy warmth of the fireplace, the reason you chose that pub in the first place. But it doesn’t matter now. Now all that matters is that first Guinness and friends asking to hear the whole story.

You mercilessly bash the new girlfriend until someone interrupts you:

She’s not really the one to blame here, right? She’s not the one who cheated.

You agree and feel mean and small-minded and swear never to drink alcohol again. It’s a short-lived oath.

PART II — THE WAIT

In this story, the reason is not relevant.

Someone sends you a book about healing and the five stages of grief / your friend visits and tells you about the five stages of grief / you go into a downward spiral of mediocre daytime TV and land on a reality show in the Australian jungle where, crawled on by frantic bugs, a Z-list celebrity, whose only claim to fame is playing the fling of a high-school jock who turned into a werewolf and ate her on a CW series, preaches about the five stages of grief.

You enter the five stages of grief.

Denial:

See end of PART I. At the pub, you insist everything will go back to normal soon. You insist they will be back. The bartender nods and pours you another drink / your friends nod and buy you another drink. For weeks you unwaveringly break your promise to never drink again.

Anger:

See beginning of PART II. You try reading the book that was sent / given / recommended to you, but only get to page 34 when you fling it into a corner of the room / stuff it into the bin / rip it up. You don’t need a fucking book to tell you how to get over your fucking ex and your fucking pain. Fuck the pain.

Bargaining:

There is no fucking pain. Is there? OK, yes, there is, but there doesn’t have to be, right? If I worked out more / drank less / drank more / ate healthier / dressed sexier / read more Woolf / Roupenian / contemporary poetry I’d be able to conquer all pains. Hold on. Why am I talking about pain? This isn’t about pain. It’s about getting my shit together. If I worked out more / drank less / drank more / ate healthier / dressed sexier / read more Woolf / Roupenian / contemporary poetry, I could win them back.

Right?

Depression:

In this story, the reason is not relevant.

Acceptance:

.

.

Now.

Again, now.

Again. Now.

See:

PART III — THE BEGINNING

In this story, the reason is not relevant. On a beach below cliffs like cathedrals, where white sands unfurl endlessly, where the ocean relishes its loneliness / between verbose cicadas and love-struck frogs only heard amongst jungle ferns / on a tower of white marble that clings to the sunset / on your way out the door / on your way in / here.

On the kitchen tiles that warm your bare feet with the morning sun they have soaked up in the quiet hours before you rose, handing you the first gift  of the day.

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Karla Hirsch (she/her) is a German-Romanian writer from Munich. Her short stories and poems have been published in Brink Literary Journal, The Four Faced Liar, The Madrigal, Spry Literary Journal, Tint Journal, and others. She’s currently working on a novel.