to those of you healing a broken heart for the very first time:

1. the world is not ending. it will keep spinning. you will keep breathing. the flowers will continue to bloom. you will bloom, too.
2. it is okay to be angry. it is okay to want to scream your throat raw. scream at them, if they deserve it. but do not ever try to hurt them as they hurt you. revenge is never what you need. it will not heal you; it will infect you.
3. sometimes, love just dies. there isn’t always another lover or an obstacle too large to overcome. sometimes, it just dies. and it doesn’t make it any less sad, but it will, in hindsight, make a lot more sense.
4. when you miss them, let yourself, but give yourself a lifeline. something to keep you from falling back into them. delete their number. block them everywhere. miss the love you had, but remember it is no longer here. do not try to find it. you will just find a grave.
5. the world is not ending. it will keep spinning. everything will keep growing, and you? you will keep breathing, and you will be, one day, just fine.

thank you

for the pain

and the poetry

especially

the poetry

—i don’t know what i would’ve done without it

you gave me

the power

to use my words.

and for that,

a part of me

will always

love you.

to ruby red,

even though the poems might sound angry, i promise that i’m not. i laid it to rest a long time ago. writing about you now is like having watched a sad movie a dozen times; eventually, it’s just numb. going through the motions. but i tell our story for the many people who need to hear it. there are many lessons to be learned from it.

i know a part of me will always sting when i think about you. i haven’t seen you in years, and i honestly don’t plan to, ever again. i think that even now, it would be like ripping open an old wound. i know that you are well. i know that you are happy. that is all that matters to me. i have no reason to reach out to you anymore.

i don’t want to say you ruined me, because you didn’t. you knocked me off balance and maybe to the ground, but you didn’t destroy me like i once thought you did. the one who did that was still years away.

i don’t know if i will ever forgive you for picking her over me not once, but twice, when it was so obvious that she wasn’t going to be there for you like i was. i will always be a little angry and a little hurt. being a second choice when you know you deserved to be the first doesn’t stop hurting no matter how long ago it happened. so i know these poems may still seem raw and if you ever read them, they might just hurt your feelings, but know that hurting you was never my intention. it might just be better if you never read them at all.