I did not give up. I let go. They are two different things. Letting go is the opposite of giving up. Letting go is moving forward. Letting go is going against every single heartbeat, swallowing every tear, cutting every string. Few people realize this, but letting go takes more courage, more strength, than holding on.

She loved sunsets, she had told him.
So he took her hand
and led her to a mountaintop.
There they stood side by side,
basking in the soft warm light of the setting sun.
She watched,
enchanted at the beauty of it all.
"I have never seen anything so beautiful,"
she said,
her eyes sparkling
and changing color with the light.
He turned and looked at her,
watched her
the way she watched the sun,
and then said,
"Neither have I."

I thought it was love
When he said it was
And looked into my eyes as he did.

I thought it was love
When he held my hand
And squeezed it, not wanting to let go.

I thought it was love
When he kissed my forehead
And brushed my hair from my face.

I thought it was love
When he wrapped his arms around me
And whispered how much he loved me.

I thought it was love
When he gave me a teddy bear
And pretended it was our child.

I thought it was love
When he told his parents about us
And stayed with me when they disapproved.

I thought it was love
When he asked for another chance
And I wholeheartedly gave it.

I thought it was love
When we went on a date
And watched his favorite movie.

I thought it was love
When he wrote me a poem
And told his friends about me.

I thought it was love
When he said he'd wait
And promised to be better.

I thought it was love
When we went to where his parents got married
And he said, "Let's get married here."

I thought it was love
And maybe it was
But it never lasted
Because he silently let go
And I was left holding on
To a memory
Of what I thought was love.

Don't just listen.
Feel.
Because the answers don't always come
In loud preachings and audible words.
Sometimes they come
In the dark of the night
Brought by the silent whispers
Or the cold midnight breeze.
Sometimes your heart hears
More than your ears do.

She wrote down her thoughts
More than she said them
The paper was her confidante
And her mouth the pen.

She wrote in prose and rhymes
In words of grief and pain
Sadness was her mother tongue
And joy her only bane.

She wrote down the cruelty
Of love and of art
She fed on broken promises
That gave her a shattered heart.

If you ever find someone
Who cares for you as I did,
Do not push her away.
Selfless people are hard to find.

If  you ever find someone
Who trusts you as I did,
Do not betray her.
Trust is not so easily glued together
Like broken plates.

If you ever find someone
Who cries as many tears
As I did because of you,
Do not hurt her.
Tears quickly dry up and disappear
But scars often do not.

If you ever find someone
Who spent every moment thinking of you,
Do  not make her think you're doing the same.
Such betrayal is of the deepest,
Most painful kind.

If you ever find someone
Who loves you as much as I did,
Do not play with her heart.
Hearts are not easily mended
Hearts are not easily healed
Especially hearts that were given unreservedly.

When I was a little girl,
I've always wondered what love would be like for me.
If it would be like fireworks
That suddenly bursts into vibrant colors
But disappears the next second;
If it would be like a sunflower
Just contentedly gazing at the sun from afar;
Or if it would be like a fire
That keeps on burning as long as the wood keeps it alive.
But the more I grew up
And the more I saw the world,
The sooner I realized
That love wasn't something easily defined
By metaphors and poetry
Love was a ray of sunlight
Covered by clouds of mystery.
Love was the shadow
You never realized was following you
And sometimes when you turn,
The light has already shifted and the shadow is gone
And has moved to another direction.
Love was not merely fireworks, or sunflowers, or burning fires.
Love was a mixture of everything.
Love is your favorite pillow stained with the bitterest tears.
Love is the beam of sunlight on the cloudiest morning.
Love is the drizzle of rain on a hot summer day.
Love is one thing while at the same time being another.
But if there was one thing I knew,
It was that love can sometimes mess you up,
Love can sometimes break you
Love can sometimes make you cry
But love can also heal
Love can also build
And love is what makes the tears all worth it.

I guess you never meant
A single word you said.

I guess you never chose me
But wanted her instead.

I guess it wasn't right
To love you more and more.

I guess you weren't worth
Holding on and fighting for.

I guess every little thing
Was merely an illusion.

I guess I tried my best
But you wanted perfection.

I guess I'll move on
Or I probably won't.

I guess I have to keep guessing
What you mean and what you don't.

I saw him walk away
Before my very eyes

And i stood there
Stunned
Wanting to pull him back.

But i knew
He wouldn't want that.

So i let him walk away.
He never looked back
Not even once.

I knew he was broken
But he did not want
To be fixed.

He said men are not
Supposed to be broken.

So i watched him walk away
Wanting to tell him
That it's okay to be broken
It's not wrong to be hurt
Because pain is what makes us human.

I ordered your favorite drink from Starbucks
And tried it for myself
Because I thought
That if I tried something you love
Then maybe
Just maybe
My heart would beat like yours
My heart would feel like yours
And I would know
If maybe
Just maybe
You still love me the way you used to.

"Have you ever been in love?" I asked her.
She smiled wearily and looked into the distance. "Yes," she replied, and it broke my heart because I felt the pain she was hiding. I saw it in her sad eyes and in the circles around them. I heard it in her firm voice . I felt it. And it was a pain so great, like the whole world caved in on her. I felt that pain **** the air out of her.
She looked at me and drew a deep breath. "I still am."
"Where is he now?" I asked her.
"Probably in his office, preparing a blueprint for a building."
"Is he married?"
"Not yet , but he will be."
She cleared her throat. The wind blew and her hair brushed against her face. Her hair was dark with a few streaks of gray. She looked younger then, with that serene look on her face. I could see her again as an eighteen-year-old. She was still small, but she had a certain kind of fierceness. She was altogether fragile, like thin glass. She was broken, but she did not cry.
I shifted in my seat. "So he's engaged?"
"Yes."
"Do you know the girl?"
A hint of a smile showed, but I knew it wasn't of amusement. Even in her smile, I saw the sorrow. "She was my bestfriend," she replied and it was the first time I heard her voice quaver. A tear rolled down her cheek. She laughed miserably. She laughed at the ridiculousness of her situation. She laughed at herself for being so stupid, so pathetic. So hopeless.
She didn't love like others did. She didn't love so fleetingly, so conditionally. She was forgiving, and gave second chances as if they grew on trees. She loved with her whole heart. She didn't love with the physical kind of love. She loved with her soul, and she loved another soul. One soul. One man, and that was it. And she knew that even in the end, when she lies cold in her grave, she will never stop loving.

It was on those sleepless nights
When I was alone with my thoughts
That I realized
Noise is not just sound
Because silence can be the most defeaning.

You pierced my heart
With every smile at her
With every glance looked her way
With every brush of your hands
With every hushed whisper to her ear
With every sign of longing in your eyes.

I knew, of course
No matter how much
You denied it
I watched you look at her
And I knew
Because
You used to
Look at me that way.

I once had loved a man
It was suicide they say
For this man had a plan
To come but never stay.

But never did I listen
Never did I heed
My whole heart was given
To him who never did.

It was a pain worth feeling
With every heartbreak, every tear
It was a love worth fighting
With every risk and every fear.

It was a treasure worth seeking
Through desert lands and stormy seas
It was a dream worth sleeping
Through  nightmares or a fleeting bliss.

It was a choice worth choosing
Despite the cons that come along
It was a tune worth singing
Despite the meaning of the song.

And with every striving breath
We hold on to what is dear
Even in life or in death
In our hearts never disappear.

And we stood there in silence.
She didn't cry
Nor did her voice shake.
She just looked at me straight in the eye
And said,
"I thought I was at least worth fighting for."
And when she spoke those words
In the calmest way possible
I swear I could almost hear her heart break.

Forgiving is not easy, but it's possible.
Physical wounds take time to heal;
Emotional ones take even more so.
And sometimes you get so consumed by the pain
That you wrap yourself in self-pity and bitterness.
But the time will come when you will get so tired of feeling bitter
Of feeling angry at everything
Of feeling offended by everything
That you will eventually want to let go
To be free
To be happy
And that's when you learn to forgive
Because there is no better revenge
Than forgiveness itself.

You search for answers
In dark corners
And hidden spaces
But never find them.
Maybe you should take a deep breath
And just look around you
And see the beauty
That you've been missing
All this time
The beauty
That lies in the scars of this world
Because not everything that is broken is ugly.

Not all who smile are happy
Not all who cry are sad
Not all are what they seem to be
They turn out different instead.

Not all poems are rhymed
Not all philosophies deep
Not all moments are timed
Not all mountains are steep.

Not all eyes can see
What's behind and what's ahead
Not all are what they seem to be
They can be something better instead.

I’m starting to forget
        how his voice sounds when he says my name
        how his hand felt clasping mine
        how his arms were wrapped around me.

I’m starting to forget
        the twinkle in his eyes
        the light in his smile
        the warmth of his breath.

I'm starting to forget
        why he stayed beside me
        why he made promises
        why he broke every single one of them.

They’re gone.
       All these things
       Are but mere fragments of shattered memories
       Like a cloud of smoke
       that disperses after a while       until it is completely gone.