Straws

She’s standing at the cliff top, the wind blustering, making her hair and clothes flow out in waves behind her.  She’s crying long and hard, her eyes red from the biting wind and the salty stinging tears.

She’s oblivious to me, standing, watching, making no sound.  Nobody knows she is here except for me.  All she knows is that she can’t go on.  She’s held on too long; clutching at the straws that make up her life, and now that’s all that’s left.  A bare shadow of her former life.

I creep a little closer toward her.  There’s nothing I can do or say to comfort her or change her fate.  You see, I’ve seen this before.  I know exactly what she is going through.  I know what she will do.

She moves closer to the flimsy fence.  That damned fence!  All that holds her back.  She’s so close to the edge but she doesn’t know.  Blinded by pain and drunk on emotion, she sees nothing and feels only a stabbing anguish.

I wish that I could reach out to her; to tell her that other people feel the same way; that things will get better, given time.  Instead I have to stand and let her suffer alone.

The cause of her grief?  A man, same as all the others I have seen.  She did all she could to make the relationship work; and now she’s standing here and he’s about to ruin someone else’s life forever.  Another statistic on the broken hearts register.

I wish I could change her fate; if there were a way I would.  I’d take her place; give her the chance that the others never got; to see that she could love again; to see that not every man is so hard and uncaring.  I wish I could help her perceive the future and forget the minority.  But I can’t; so I get to sit here and watch her follow the others; watch her do exactly what I did on this self same spot two years previously.  Let go of the remaining straws of her life.