My heart is too heavy.
I am weighed down
by the emptiness you left behind
in your goodbye,
and I’ve been stumbling over myself
trying to catch my footing
while attempting to rid my body of the toxins
you left me poisoned with,
polluting the rivers of my veins.

You would think I have
nothing left
to keep me going after
I poured all I had out into a glass
that was overflowing
with what I was more than willing to offer,
just for you to become
greedy for more than I could possibly give.
You left me with nothing
but the ache of my bones shattering
and memories impaired by the sound of
your footsteps walking away.

I learned about myself
while writhing in heartache.
I can still love so hard
and so much
despite the hollowed out shell
you left me in.
I realized I’m a walking contradiction,
composed of a transcendent gift and
a crippling curse,
and for that I can’t help but admire my heart.

It was this admiration that helped me.
I stopped letting my tears soak the pillow at night
and my lungs cleared
so I started breathing easier,
no longer clogged with the lies
you forced into my lungs.
I shoved your smile into
the vacant corners
of my memories for them to
stay and collect dust.
I turned your venom
into glitter that beamed
with the power of
knowing you would
never come back.

I finally picked up the shards of my
splintered bones
and made them stable enough to keep the
heaviness of my heart upright,
knowing well that they were the
only shelter I needed.
I called myself my own home
and let it be fueled by
my gift of a heart that
won’t ever stop beating.

You asked for me
to write you a sentence,
so I wrote a poem about why
I couldn’t live without you.
You asked me to write a short story
about our love,
so I wrote a book with you
as the plot, ******, and
my falling action,
and binded it
with my bare hands.
You wanted a novel,
so I wrote a trilogy with
thousands of pages,
and I still felt as though
I could not capture
how much I cared for you.
But you told me
you wanted more proof,
because you didn’t yet understand
that I could write entire encyclopedias
about your eyes
and create atlases
filled with maps and charts on
the perfect curves of
your smile.
You didn’t get that
I could, and would, write
anything
for you, about you,
that would let the world know
how incredibly
in love with you
I was.
I didn’t want to stop until the
trees were gone
and I ran out of paper,
or every pen and printer
ran out of ink.
I didn't want to stop
until I had written
enough for you to
comprehend the
amount of love
I held.
I tried and tried,
and wrote and wrote.
But,
it seemed there weren’t enough words
in the dictionaries
I created,
or myths and legends
in fables and fairytales
that provided the
analysis of my love
for you.
And you kept asking for more
and more
and my hands grew tired and cramped,
marked with papercuts
that wouldn’t close,
trying to keep up
with your confusion
and inability
to understand.
I found myself running out
of things to write
and words to write them with,
the ink was starting to fade,
and my mind began to
draw blanks,
straining to find the reason
as to why I started writing
in the first place.