Before the light breaks and enters the dawn of a new day. You will have thoughts in your mind and feelings in your heart. You will have shadows of dreams that sometimes tear you apart. But the most important thing to remember is all the thoughts and feelings are yours. You may bend, but you will not break, and the light of a new day will ease all the ache. No matter the distance or what may come your way, from my heart to yours, I hope you stay.

There was never a right time to say goodbye. Not when you looked at me, with all that misery in your eyes. But I couldn’t keep up with all the lies, or the way you treated my heart. I couldn’t shake the feeling, every time we kissed, like I was just another name to add to your list.

I hold all this blame

about how badly

things between us ended

I dream so vividly

of our conversations

late at night

But despite all the reasons

I shouldn’t think of you

I still do

It was just bad timing

I told myself

But bad timing happened

time and time again

And after all the pain

maybe it wasn’t the timing

Maybe we were just two people

bad for each other

I used to picture us in rocking chairs, out on the porch. We’d be waiting for our grandchildren coming up the drive. But now that picture’s gone, and every time I see those rocking chairs, yours is empty.

My heart lay asleep in a glass jar, kept safe on my shelf. Until you walked into my life and promised to be gentle, promised to help. So, I gave the jar to you, asked you to hold on tight, and instead you did the opposite. The jar shattered, and my heart fell to the floor. Now my heart is ripped and torn from all the pieces of glass, and I don’t know what to do. All this mess, because I believed in you.

Everybody said to let you go, said we were no good together. So, I walked away, after too many fights in the back of the cab. But your memory stayed, and it follows me everywhere. I close my eyes and we’re on the beach, sitting cross-legged, talking about all the places we want to go. I turn over in the sheets and the pillow still smells of your perfume. Tell me how I am supposed to move on when I’m haunted by all the things you are.

Did you mean to make my world stop turning? Do you remember the moment we stopped working? Why are you holding on when we are so clearly lost? If you ever even loved me, then break my heart quickly, because the ache is killing me slowly.

You are somewhere else, with someone new, drowning in her scent, hands lost in her hair. And yet I’m still here with all the moments we shared, not knowing how I’m supposed to have those moments with anyone else.

We sat in your car, with leftover takeout, and you listed all the things wrong with us. But all I could think about was how I wanted to fix what we’d broken. Thinking back now, even after all the time you’ve been gone and everything we’ve been through, what broke my heart that night was when you said, “You’ll find someone new.”

The grief lies in the space between us. It’s made a home in the nights we don’t speak and the days we ignore each other.

Will anyone

love me

the way I am

Will the loneliness

in my heart

be filled

Will the way

I love

ever be enough