The Broken Hearts Lullaby

The Sixty Eight-

The first was about tanning. The second was about communication. The third was about spending time with friends. The eighth was about your friends. The twelfth was about communication. The fifteenth was about how you ran to the beach. The eighteenth was about those other two girls. The twenty-second was about your summer job. The twenty-fourth was about distance. The twenty-sixth was about communication. The twenty-seventh was about love languages. The twenty-eighth was about Spain. The thirty-fourth was about your summer job. The thirty-ninth was about your family vacation. The forty-first was about communication. The forty-second was about Spain. The forty-third was about Spain. The forty-eighth was about your bracelet. The forty-ninth was about me. The fiftieth was about my sadness. The fifty-third was about Spain. The fifty-fourth was about those other other girls. The fifty-sixth was about me. The fifty-ninth was about the homeless. The sixtieth was about teaching the kids Spanish. The sixty-fifth was about missions. The sixty-seventh was about us. The sixty-eighth was the last.

How to Heal-

            As soon as he walks out that door you think, “he’ll come back.” You convince yourself it’s a mistake, it isn’t real, you’re imagining it worse than it is. You hold firm in your conviction that he’ll realize he was wrong to leave you, that he made a mistake, that he misses you. You do this because it’s the only way you can breathe.

            You collapse all at once, you fall to the floor, the pain penetrates your heart and you stare at the door. Like a gunshot you feel it start bleeding out. Tears come like tidal waves and your breath like a twister. You can’t sleep. You can’t eat if it weren’t for your mother who drugged you.

            But soon it’s been three weeks and your phone hasn’t rung, and your door hasn’t been approached, and it’s taking conscious effort to pump your heart. You think maybe he needs more time. You think he just needs some space. You think if once he knows what it’s like without you he’ll come running back.

            And when you both return to school in January, you think he’ll see you and miss you. You know that he’ll change his mind. You’ll think, “now he knows what it’s like without me, he’s going to want me back.” And four months pass and you’re friends now and you think if you just give it some more time, maybe then he’ll see his mistake.

            Then summer comes, and he’s graduated. And you sat with his family at graduation. And his family invites you to their house for a week in the summer. And you agree because you think that means he wants you back. So you go, and he doesn’t want you back. But you think, maybe he’ll want me when I leave, maybe he just needs more time to miss what we had.

            But when September comes you start to realize maybe he won’t come around. And you fight through the tears and you try and let go, but he keeps showing up on your phone. And you think he’s interested, that he’s ready to come back, but then you realize he’s not, and you have to let go.

            And now it’s winter, and it’s been two months since you’ve talked. And you start to crumble. It starts out slow, just a crack here, and a snap there. You grip the last shred of hope a little tighter. Your knuckles grow white and your breaths become sharp, and all at once, you realize you can’t hold on another minute. And you cry through the motions, and that hope is just history. Your throat goes dry and your eyes wont stop raining and your friends don’t understand. Suddenly you’re lost in the days, they blend together as one, a series of emotionless actions, of rising and falling.

Your chest becomes tight and your body feels weak. But you pick yourself up, and you smile with your teeth, and you put your feet on the ground. Outside you seem fine; after all it’s been eleven months. Your friends think you’re whole, that your hurting has passed. But inside your mind screams, your body shakes, your legs collapse. You feel shattered, asthmatic. Behind your smile, you’re broken, and know one even notices. They’ve stopped asking how you’re doing; they get mad when you bring up the past. Though outside your eyes shine, it’s only from the tears, and inside your heart breaks, though it’s been almost a year.

And the hardest part is that you know he’s doing just fine without you, because if he wasn’t, he would’ve come back.

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