When breaking up isn't an end in itself, but a process.

It doesn't have to be explicitly stated,
or as easy as "let's break up" anymore.
It started the very nanosecond when one say,
"I could not convincingly say that i love you"
"I do not know how i feel about you"
There doesn't have to be any reasons to justify a start in the process.

It is a beginning of an end that doesn't want to appear as so.
"you are special" becomes entangled in a mesh of cold-cut wires,
that pricks you when you pick it up.
It is pretending to carry on, holding up a semblence of
a shadow of what is has been, of what it was.
It has become a skin deflating while you are still inside it,
trying desperately to keep it held up in its original form,
trying desperately not to let it collapse on you.

"Did you just step on a nail my dear?"

You will know that breaking up is a process when...
when nothing was said over fries at Macdonald
when he wouldn't, daren't maintain eye-contact
when he used to walk beside but now one and a half step infront
when he held you hand and yet the once familiar touch felt foreign
when pressure changed with each contact
when your hand brushed against each other and he flinched for a second
before recovering just as quickly to hold it again.

It is knowing that he still cares and yet perhap he doesn't.
It is knowing that he loved you and yet may have never loved you.
It is sharing a can of worms with you, watching you eat it one by one because that's the way it has to be
It is a request for breathing space and yet taking away every available oxygen around you,
making it hard for you to breath.
It is asking for time and yet you know that it is just used to allow the pain to ebb away,
to allow a slow least painless way to wilt away.

Except that it is not painless.
It's never painless i'm afraid.

Breaking up is a process.
And now, i am not ready to begin the process of acceptance.