On the day we broke up, she suddenly asked me, “When the chalkboard eraser wipes across the board, why does the chalk cry?”
I was stunned and shook my head. She lowered her head and said nothing more. After a moment, she turned and walked away, leaving me with a solitary back view. That scene lingered in my memory, like a still frame that occasionally surfaced in my mind.
A long time later, I received a card from her. On it was her familiar, neat handwriting: “The chalk cries because it realizes that the feelings it used its life to write, those moments it thought would be etched deeply, are wiped away so easily by the eraser.”
As I read those words, it felt as if I could see her eyes filled with tears. Once, our love was so pure, like the first light of spring, carrying a faint warmth and expectation. We strolled through the campus playground, whispered softly in the library’s corners, and in those youthful years, believed we would be together for life.
However, life is always full of changes. After graduation, we moved to different cities and started our own lives. The busyness of work and the distance made our contact less frequent. We tried to maintain our relationship but ultimately couldn’t withstand the tests of time and space. Our love, like words written on the chalkboard, dissipated with a gentle wipe of the eraser.
On the day she left, I tried to make her stay but couldn’t find the right words. She just smiled and shook her head, saying, “Some things can’t be forced.” At that moment, I felt a helpless pain in my heart, like something was being tightly grasped, yet I was powerless.
Now, reading her card, I finally understood that her question was a metaphor for our relationship. The chalk gave its all to write, but the chalkboard erased it in an instant. We were both like the chalk, giving everything to love, only to find that many things cannot last forever.
I treasured the card in my drawer and occasionally took it out to read. Those words reminded me that we once loved so hard, and even though we didn’t end up together, that sincere affection was still worth cherishing.
Sometimes, I think of her and the beautiful times we spent together. Although the chalk cries, its tears are filled with the joy and happiness of the past. I believe that in her memories, there is a corner reserved for me, and our story will never be erased, only existing in a different way in our hearts.
