What it's like

Variations on a theme.

Smitten's friend got dumped and is now soliciting the company of other miserable people. When asked what it's like to suffer (it's always a verb like "to suffer," or "to nurture," as though it's something you raise and pour water on, stir for added effect) from heartbreak, people would say it feels like being shot--the bullet hits you, but you don't feel it immediately, not at all, unless you've bit hit in the spinal column. It's still possible to walk on for a block or two hundred, and you would go on, until you realize that blood fills your shoes and is doodling patterns on the sidewalk. That's when you realize the pain is real, when you see the spot growing around you, the blood not quite the shade in your crayon box, but a very dark one.

So anyhow, pain. For T and for smitten, whose comments box is flooded by different versions of what it's like to get dumped: (1) S/he sends you a text message, (2) Your boyfriend's mother calls and greets you a happy birthday, and "btw, my son's having an affair. I just thought you should know;" (3) Immediately post coital, while you're still both naked, and in his apartment, natch; (4) your boyfriend dedicates Robert Palmer's "I Didn't Mean to Turn You On," among other things.

The person compiling the Sawi anthology would probably have a field day reading this. Pain is always a nice motivation.