Home: poems to heal your heartbreak

Such a wonderful read. It takes you through the longing, loss, grief, hate, sorrow, loneliness, doubt and all the subtle, paradoxical, and subliminal feelings that come with a heartbreak.

I had the misfortune of feeling romantic love and an almost immediate heartbreak for an emotionally abusive person nearly a year ago. I decided to help them through their healing anyway, disregarding how much they hurt me. Until I finally told them I will love them forever (not romantically) but I cannot forgive them for what they did. Later on, they started changing/controlling the narrative and trash talked behind my back to our mutual friends. I, being the one who always sacrificed and apologized, did that again just to keep the peace and resisted saying anything bad about them. I still don't know if I did the right thing. Should I have stood up for myself at the cost of hurting our community? Or did I do the mature thing by doing what they wanted? Was it out of maturity, weakness, or understanding?

I also recently had the fortune of feeling several kinds of love (however brief) for an amazing soul who rescued me from the depths of darkness - a love that didn't imprison, didn't impose guilt; a love that liberated me and made me grow.

Given these experiences, the following poems resonated with me:

On the curse of understanding those who wrong you:

dear empathy, please stop telling me that it's okay when they hurt me stop allowing me to accept the knife you see in their side is a reasonable excuse for them to put two in mine please stop introducing me to their demons i don't want to shake hands with the reasons they can't seem to stay please stop waving a white flag and making me pity their anger and make peace with their madness.

i stand here fully dressed to say goodbye but you left me naked embarrassed of all i showed you clothing can only keep you as safe as the walls you put around your heart i took my walls down for you i wish i hadn't

sometimes the battles that take the most strength are the ones you choose not to fight

sometimes caring is a curse

you're like me, you struggle with walking away from situations that aren't healthy for you. if you're like me, it is hard to see the line between i care for you and i will put your needs before mine until my feet are blistered from racing to catch you every time you fall. if you are like me, then listen. walking away from situations that are hurting you does not mean that you are heartless. it means that you have outgrown the shoes you've been using to chase unreciprocated love. it means that you are learning to value yourself. you have not lost your capacity for love. you are discovering how to love you.

it's okay make me hurt the finest art is painted with the blood of a broken heart.

i author my own chaos then ask why the tempest won't subside

what if in my story the protagonist fell in love with the antagonist? what if i don't want to fight the villain? what if i want to invite them into my home make them dinner and find out what left them so broken? what if my fight is to make sure the villain knows love? and although there is sacrifice in that kind of love what if i would still choose it every time?

learning to thrive in stability has not been easy for me i have spent so long in the storm i keep asking the sun to bring back the clouds why does comfort make me feel so uneasy

it's not what i was expecting. after you left, you became this monster in my mind. i couldn't think about you without seeing all the ugly anger i felt. but then i see your face again and you're not a monster, you're the person i loved and that is why it hurts so bad.

there is a kindness that i have for you that will never leave me. no matter how badly you betrayed me.

how do you let love in again when all it has shown you is that it is cruel, untrustworthy, and inconsistent? they say you're supposed to learn from your mistakes, but if that's true than i'm never going to let love have me again.

i stayed with sadness because she reassured me that i was capable of feeling so deeply. i ran from love because i never wanted to feel her that deeply again.

i know now that this is how it works you don't get to keep everyone in your life forever there are some people that are just meant to be a sunrise for you a light to pull you out of the darkness there are friends, lovers, relationships that are seasonal and no matter how deep of a conversation you had with that person at 2 am no matter how much you shared your heart even if you can still draw the lines of their smile like the map of a too familiar road in the back of your mind there almost always comes a time to move on a time to let go and regardless of the letting go i just wanted you to know you're always going to feel a little bit like home to me no matter how temporary it is still beautiful that i got to call so many hearts my home

it feels like you're lost. you're on a ship sailing through troubled waters, occasionally pulling a drowning soul on board. you mend whatever has left them broken. once they are whole, they leave, and you are alone again. sometimes you want to jump overboard and let someone save you instead. but you are too kind to be a temporary passenger in someone's heart. do me a favor. stay on board. you're not lost you are finding

i am in love with you yes you the people with fragile hearts i think you are the bravest most beautiful of miracles if you cry when you read books or if another's pain brings you heartache if your heart cracks for the sake of bent butterfly wings please stay that way do not let the weight of the world make you hard.

no matter how you feel, your ability to see the good in everyone you meet is a gift. it is a gift that makes you vulnerable. it is a gift that will, at times, leave you on a bathroom floor crying at 2a.m. regardless, if you always see roses and never thorns, you are extraordinary. i see how much you care and i think your heart is a garden. it is beautiful.

if you are able to acknowledge that you did something wrong and also realize that not everything wrong is your fault, that is power.





thank you for saving me from settling for the wrong person by walking away from me



“what is beautiful is that i survived to write about it. what is beautiful is that i broke and i'm still here. what is beautiful is that you cry with me because we both know loss. what is beautiful is that despite the emptiness i feel, tears still fall from my eyes because i am still human. what is beautiful is that losing someone is not the end of the story.”

they gifted you the capacity to understand all kinds of heartache each one of them gave you a reason to be kind to wandering souls use this knowledge of vulnerability to heal everyone you touch ~ past lovers



to love yourself you must first find a new definition of love that is not the one you have learned from hurt people and failed relationships. you must learn that love is not conditional and that nothing you see in the mirror can alter the portion of love you deserve. you must learn that love is not the wage you earn for what you do or how much you do it. love is forgiving, consistent, and kind. i know that this is not the love you have learned but it can be the love you are learning.

i think it is insane the depth at which you can care for a person yet still neglect to care for yourself this time—you come first

this morning i woke up and she was standing by my bed palm open to me eyes begging me to take her hand i closed my eyes tried to sink back into my sadness then opened my eyes changed my mind and took her hand ~ happiness

you've struggled so long with that word “belong” you have tried to find people and places to belong to but people have left and you have outgrown these spaces the truth is you belong to me and to anyone else who, for a moment, has shared your mind or touched your soul you belong to the sun and to the rain to your trials and to your joy you have developed this misconception that belonging is an eternal state but you can belong temporarily and move on when you have outgrown your home tomorrow morning when your feet hit the floor please know you belong