Remuk (Shattered) Darker Edition
the more words I type,
the more the memories pull themselves loose
and slip into a dark orbit—
a quiet time machine
dragging me back
to the year 2014.
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it takes around two hundred and fifty kilograms
to crush a human skull.
and yet, somehow,
the heart breaks far easier than bone—
quietly,
softly,
long before anyone hears the crack.
take Ken—my first love,
and the first person I ever sat across from
just to end everything
while watching his eyes
try to understand
what breaking looks like.
I shattered the silence between us
with the weight of words
I sharpened through a sleepless night—
words I polished,
half in fear,
half in prayer.
I thought I understood heartbreak, in theory.
but in practice, I knew nothing.
I never imagined
how impact feels
when it lands at full speed
like a car hitting concrete.
and once again,
I slammed the brakes
when everything was moving too fast,
and we were both thrown
into the wreckage
of our own emotions.
he tried to speak—
and with every attempt,
he cracked what was left
of our silent wall.
his tears gathered
at the edge of his eyelids,
full and trembling,
one breath away
from falling.
he reached for my hand,
hoping it could anchor him.
slowly,
inevitably—
I pulled my hand away.
then the fragments returned,
one by one,
as if summoned:
the stifling Jakarta night,
his footsteps shadowing mine,
my constant glances over the shoulder—fear,
the dim park where I hid from him,
my heartbeat pounding so hard
it felt like it might burst,
his name lighting up my phone
over and over,
the twisted contradiction
of wanting to escape
yet wanting to be wanted,
his black car still waiting
in the mall parking lot,
me staring at the sky
but remembering his voice,
his face,
his existence.
and from those shards,
another particle of memory surfaced—
the night we tried again.
hundreds of nights later,
wounds stitched themselves
with hesitant tenderness,
the warmth of his hands
coaxing the old fractures
into something almost whole.
sharing nights
that belonged to the same sky,
but different fireworks.
lunch with his mother,
familiar laughter,
the illusion of safety returning.
and then another night—
at the roadside gate,
under a weak streetlamp,
my phone rang:
mama.
searching for me,
as if a mother’s instinct could sense
that something in me
was beginning to unravel.
before I answered,
in that fragile second,
he—the one I loved—
asked me to lie.
“don’t tell her you’re here.”
“say you’re somewhere else.”
and there—
right there—
the brakes inside me
slammed again.
our almost-healed story
was thrown off the road;
old fractures cracked open,
dust and blood
falling from wounds
that never truly closed.
we broke together—
but he was broken even worse.
and I…
I blamed the car we kept trying to fix—
the one that never had
a crash cushion.
it all became
a storm of glass—
shards exploding in the air,
sharp and suspended
above our heads,
until gravity decided
to pull them down—
embracing the blades,
driving them
straight into our crowns.
the stab went deep—
so deep
that the tip of the glass
carved its way
into our hearts itself.
and the heart—
already fragile—
bled quietly
where no silent tears can heal.
so now tell me—
is any of this
truly my fault?
