Heartbreak Feels Like

Heartbreak feels like horrible pains in your chest, like someone is stabbing you. And then crushing pressure. And you can’t breathe.

Heartbreak feels like you can’t stop crying.

Heartbreak feels like your stomach is twisted in knots and you can’t hold down any food.

Heartbreak feels like you pretended someone cared about you. Because you didn’t want to think about the alternative.

Heartbreak feels like finding the evidence of who they really loved.

Heartbreak feels like all the times they told you your writing was too long. That it bored them.

Heartbreak feels like your desire to write has been killed.

Heartbreak feels like you see all the times he read her work. And it’s so trivial, so nothing, it’s agony to wrap your brain around why he was so disinterested in your writing.

Heartbreak feels like a friendship you made up in your head. Because you needed a friend.

Heartbreak feels like everyone caring when you wrote your deepest secret. Except the one person whose shoulder you wanted to cry on.

Heartbreak feels like knowing you’re so fucked up no one will ever love you. You have been so damaged that no one wants to pick through the ruins of your life.

Heartbreak feels like a sled bumping into the back of your heels on a cold walk home at dusk. Crying because she forgot to pick you up and it’s winter and you’re not sure where you are.

Heartbreak feels like every birthday she never remembered.

Heartbreak feels like you’re afraid now to hit “publish.” Paralyzed because you realize nothing you’ve ever written is any good.

Heartbreak feels like your hands are shaking so much you took hours to type this.

Heartbreak feels like finding out your best wasn’t good enough. but someone else’s mediocre was a feast.

Heartbreak feels like it’s not just your heart. Your whole body feels broken.

Heartbreak feels like pushing away people who do love you.

Heartbreak feels like he wrote “that took my breath away” about her really bad poetry. And actually tasting your own vomit.

Heartbreak feels like she wrote a crappy, purposeless blog. And seeing him all over that blog. When he hasn’t read one of your posts. Not even the really funny ones.

Heartbreak feels like remembering how he approached you. Out of the blue. And wishing it never happened.

Heartbreak feels like your shoes are too tight. And letting your toes press hard against the inside front because if you tell her she’ll get angry that you need new ones.

Heartbreak feels like losing the only house you ever had. Because you grew up in a housing project. And having him say, “oh, you’ll bounce back.”

Heartbreak feels like he doesn’t even know it’s the only house you ever lived in. And that you grew up in a housing project. And that you won’t “bounce back.” Because he’s never read anything you’ve written.

Heartbreak feels like someone being mean to you when you’re at your lowest. When you just want them to hold you.

Heartbreak feels like you blew the chance of a lifetime. Many times.

Heartbreak feels like watching your best friend die of cancer.

Heartbreak feels like stealing stuff from your friends to buy drugs.

Heartbreak feels like a rhythm in your head that’s been playing since childhood: Love me, love me, love me, love me.

Heartbreak feels like you want to just get drunk and build a blanket fort, a personal video game sex fort. With hookers.

Heartbreak feels like you want to fuck all his friends.

Heartbreak feels like you probably will.

Heartbreak feels like you read everything he ever wrote. Because that’s what friends do.

Heartbreak feels like finally realizing, he’s not your friend.

Heartbreak feels like wanting someone to take care of you. Even for one day.

Heartbreak feels like realizing you have no idea what that even feels like.

Heartbreak feels like a rhythm that’s been playing in your head since the break up of your marriage: Alone, alone, alone, alone. Forever, forever, forever, forever.

Heartbreak feels like you were killed in your writing. And you’re not sure why.

Heartbreak feels like you know he thinks you’re “the crazy chick.”

Heartbreak feels like you’ve been in recovery from your childhood your whole adult life.

Heartbreak feels like you’re so exhausted from this. And understanding why you’re not worthy of love. It feels like this: empty empty empty empty.

Heartbreak feels like how he ridicules you for writing this. Because you have to expose every part of yourself, “down to the last blood cell.”

Heartbreak feels like getting beaten when you’re too young to fight back. And looking at your son’s small body and just thinking, “How?”

Heartbreak feels like getting raped in a shooting gallery on Avenue D. Because you deserved it.

 

Heartbreak feels like this: Over over over over.

Heartbreak feels like you can’t breathe. You cannot breathe. You have the evidence in front of your face of what you feared most and you cannot breathe. 

 

Heartbreak feels like you just found your kid’s journal. And he wrote yesterday, “Mom cried all day. She tried to hide it from me, but I’m not f***ing stupid.”

Heartbreak feels like your 11-year-old wrote “f***ing” in his journal.

Lawson989