Don't break her heart.

I know she and I don't talk anymore
and that she was fine with breaking me
to be with you.

But don't break her for me.
I could never forgive myself.

If you're happy with her,
stay with her.

If you could be happier,
reconsider.

We never really knew each other.

Sure, we texted nonstop.
You stared at me in the halls.
But missed chances and glances were all we had.
We never had a real conversation.
(Maybe things would have been different if we did.)

All my memories of you
consist of my face lit by a bright screen,
sitting in the darkness of my bedroom,
wishing for you—desperately—at 11:11.

You pretended you meant none of what you told me,
so I pretended that every word you ever said to me was a lie.

Every compliment.
Every "I love you."
Every promise.

Beneath the surface,
I know that you meant all of it
and more.

I just pretend it was all fake
because you told her
she was real.

Breathe in the fresh air.
Soak up the sunlight.
Travel everywhere.
Stay up till midnight.

Wear your hair down.
Play your favorite songs.
Put on a flower crown.
Bring your friends along.

Then turn off the music,
and listen to the roar of the waves.
Bury your feet in the sand.

Let all your worries float away.

I think about us sometimes.
But we don't get to me
like we used to.

Don't get me wrong—
I still feel the same as I did before.
But all those feelings are
distant now.
They're fading.

Whenever I try to remember us,
all the good and the bad
blend in my mind.

The individual memories can't be separated
because they're so far away from their inception.

I don't know you.
I barely know myself
anymore.

When you say goodbye,
you don't mean it.
You mean "I'll see you later."
"Talk soon."
"I'll miss you."

When I say goodbye,
I'm gone.

And you can be sure
I'm never coming back.

When I run,
the thought of you
makes me run faster.

I think about how
angry you made me,
and I become stronger.

You're no longer my weakness.
You're my strength.

I hated it.
Every single time
you called me beautiful,
I hated it.

I get it;
I have blue eyes,
long hair,
a thin body.
Everything you wanted.

But there's so much more to me than that.

I bet you wouldn't have liked me
if I had shorter hair
and a little extra weight.
That's why I realized I don't want a guy
who constantly calls me beautiful.

I want to be called
mesmerizing,
fascinating,
breathtaking.

Those words say much more about the real me
than "beautiful" ever will.

I find beauty in the trees,

truth in the breeze,

security in the sunrise,

and peace in your blue eyes.

Finally
remembering
how
to
forget.

If you start questioning it,
she will too,
and then she'll be grateful
that you made her stop and think about it all
because she'll realize you were never
what she wanted.

But what it'll take you a while to realize
is she wasn't what you wanted
either.

Sometimes, I think I really loved you
but fell out of love.

Sometimes, I think I never loved you,
just felt like I should.

Sometimes, I think I loved you all along
but knew it was best to let go.

I'd rather be hard-to-get
and end up with a guy
who's willing to fight for me
than be easy
and end up with someone
who doesn't truly deserve me.

I don't make out on the first date.
I don't ditch my friends for a guy.
And I definitely don't settle
for being someone's second choice.

I'm hard-to-get,
but once you've got me,
I'm all in.

Never go through
with being someone's
second choice
because for you to be second,
there had to have been a first.

And that first will always be out there,
somewhere.

I see what you did.

You ignored me for a month
and then just happened to come back
the day before you asked her out
to make sure I still wasn't interested.

I'm not stupid.
I saw right through you,
and I don't appreciate being used.

That may have been well played,
but it wasn't played well enough.

You were like a little kid looking to buy a new toy.

You picked the expensive one because it was
shiny and pretty and new,
but you didn't have enough money.
So you settled for the cheaper toy
even though you wanted the other one
so much more.

Eventually, you were happy.
But you still dreamt of that shiny toy
every time you closed your eyes.

We had something special,
connected on a deeper level.

But I guess you were willing to settle
for something less than that.

A lie is an intentional mistruth.
It's when you deliberately try to get someone
to believe something you know isn't true.

A mistake is unintentional.
It's when you ***** up,
and usually,
you end up hurting someone
even though you never meant to.

It's when you let people push you
to do or say things you aren't ready to.

It's when you're still learning what it means
to dream, to live, to love,
when you try so insanely hard
to put it all behind you,
but you can't because people won't let you
forget the mistakes you made.

Just remind yourself that all people make mistakes,
and your mistakes don't define you.

******* up doesn't make you a liar.
It makes you human.

We wrote our names in the sand.

The gentle rain began to grace the
shores with its mysterious beauty
as its delicate droplets fell
slowly
from the heavens high above.

The sun's rays refracted
against the glistening waters,
and the rain dissipated
when it came in contact
with the smooth surface of the ocean blue.

Crystal clear streaming drops continued
making their way to the waves,
but soon their gentle graces grew
into pounding pours.

The lightning came without warning.
The sun hid behind the dark clouds.
The tides began to toss and turn,
and the waves crashed against the sand,
washing away our names
until all that was left was

the sand, the waves, the lightning
and the rain.

The winds blew north
for hundreds of days,
but one day,
the winds changed.

They started blowing south.
And everything in their path
started going south as well.

You never loved me;
you loved the idea of me.

The idea of having me as yours,
as someone pretty to say "I love you,"
as someone who was always there
to talk to, to complain to.
Someone to think of.

But now that you have her,
you don't need me.
You never needed me.
You needed someone, anyone,
but I wasn't going to let that someone be me.

You never loved me;
you loved the idea of me.

And now you love her.
(the idea of her)

Looking back on it all,
I don't understand why I gave you
so many second third fourth changes.
You treated me horribly
and I let you back in
every. single. time.

I guess I thought that
when I let you back,
you would be different.
You would treat me better.

But each time,
nothing changed.
And the last time,
I just had to say
goodbye.

Looking back on it,
I realize it was all lies.

All the "sweet" things you said,
they were just to blind me from the truth.
You never meant a single word.

So I've decided it's not worth remembering lies
and that I'm better off forgetting
you.

I never knew you.
You never knew me.
We never met;
this never happened;
it was all a dream.
(And I'm finally
awake.)

I have to forget.

That's all I can do
if I want to be anything
like I used to.

When I was whole,
when my heart was in one piece.

A few months before
your careless love destroyed me.

Let me guess...
She's your favorite person;
she helps relieve life's burdens;
she's the one you text late at night,
and you think she's absolutely perfect,
right?

You made up some metaphor
to make her blush more than ever before.

And she's the one you'll dream about
because it's her whom you love now.

I don't hate you.
After all that we went through,
I never hated you.
—I thought I could never hate you.

But then again,
I thought I knew you.

I thought you were that sweet, selfless guy,
the guy that cared about me more than anything,
who said he'd never hurt me.
Who told me he loved me.

But if you really cared about me more than anything,
and loved me as much as you claimed you did,
then you wouldn't have hurt me like you did now.

I wouldn't be sitting here
with tears streaming down my face,
writing these poems to get out the feelings
I otherwise bury inside.

I could never hate the boy I thought you were.
But you're not that boy at all,
at least, not anymore.

I'm so sick of people
pretending they want to
stay in my life
when they really don't.

So if you don't want to
treat me well,
then you can just leave
—because I'd much rather have
a few true friends
than a bunch of fake ones.

Driving down the freeway
underneath the dark night sky.

Thinking about it all.
Tears falling from my eye.

Starring out the window
at the reflection in the mirror.

Remembering the times
when it all seemed so much
clearer.

You have no clue what I went through.

Crying on the bathroom floor,
explaining to my mom
everything I had hidden from her
for the past few months.

Weeping for hours and deciding to compose
the hardest letter I ever had to write.

Sobbing because I thought I'd never
speak to him again.

But then crying tears of joy
when he finally came back.

A few days after, dying on the inside
because he left again,
but seeing his name pop up
on my screen after another month,
wondering what I should do
and deciding to reply and

finally

tears slowly falling from my eye
as I faced the fact that I had to say
goodbye.

If you were really my best friend,
you'd know that all I needed was
for you to be there for me.
I didn't need to know the truth.
I already knew I had ******* up.
I just needed you to assure me
that everything would be okay.

But instead, you were there for him,
acting like what I went through wasn't hard,
telling me how much I messed up,
assuring me that everything that happened was
my fault.

True friends don't do that.
Ex-friends do.

I broke your heart.

You came crawling back to me,
saying it was all your fault
(even though you thought it was mine),
just so you could speak to me again.

So, I let you back in my life.
But then you said you couldn't handle it,
couldn't handle thinking about
what had happened between us,
about how badly it hurt you,
because you still loved me
and knew I didn't love you back.

So you said goodbye,
that you might be back
sometime.

You had given me a second chance
when I broke your heart.
But I don't think
I'll ever be able to give you one
after you broke mine.

So when you did come back,
I had to say goodbye.

Sometimes, I'd think that I missed it.
All the late-night conversations,
good morning "I love you"s,
glances exchanged in the halls,
awkward smiles,
adorable nicknames,
that bracelet.

But I don't wear that bracelet anymore,
not since you starting doubting all we had.

When the good morning texts were just typed,
sitting there with the send button unpressed.
When we started avoiding each other in the halls
because we couldn't bear to see the other's face.
When those awkward smiles we'd exchange
turned into just plain awkward.
When the adorable nicknames went away.
When that bracelet just sat there,
on my dresser instead of my wrist.

Sometimes, I thought I missed the way we were.
But now I know, we're better off the way we are.

Stop leaving hints.
I get them;
I just don't reply anymore.

I guess it's because you claim everything
in that last message you sent
was a lie.

If that's true,
it means you won't always
be there if I need you,
and that I was never as important to you
as you said I was.

I guess what I'm trying to say is, please
stop leaving the little hints.
Show me that you've moved on.
Prove to me that I never cross your mind
anymore,
that you're completely over me.

Just get out of my life.

You said I reminded you of the rain,
and I said you reminded me of the sunset.
You said that you'd stick by me
even if there was some thunder.
I said I'd stick by you
long enough to see every sunrise.

But then, there was some thunder,
and some lightning,
and the rain you thought you knew so well
turned out to be a hurricane.

You didn't stay, but to this day
I still watch every single sunset
and wake up early
to see the sun rise.

You were the sun, she was the moon, and I was the rain.

You, the sun,
would rise every morning, sometimes accompanied by the most
beautiful array of colors, other times with dark clouds so deep,
suffocating—your rays couldn't even attempt to shine through.

She, the moon,
would go away every morning, just as you were rising,
because she knew that you would be too busy fantasizing about
the mysterious rain that you could never love her liked she wanted you to.

I, the rain,
would come and go, loud and soft, hard and gentle.
I never saw you, the sun, give off your beautiful, majestic colors
because whenever I would come, clouds would shield you from
being able to send me your love in the form of tremendous hues
that would have made me stay in love with you forever.

If it weren't for the rain, maybe the sun would have fallen in love with the moon.
If it weren't for the clouds, maybe the rain would have stayed in love with the sun.
But the moon shines brighter alone in the night sky than it ever would next to the sun,
and the sun is much more beautiful without the rain.

That is why the rain went away.
It had fallen in love with the sun because it felt like the sun was
the only thing that had also experienced the storm, but the
difference between the sun and the rain is the sun shined after each storm.
But the rain disappeared.
The rain could never see the sun shine.

He was the sun;
I was the rain;
together, we made a hurricane.
And during the eye,
for that simple night,
we were able to reunite.
The sun and the rain
together again,
but we knew it had to come to an end.
So the next day
the sun went away
and the rain never said
goodbye.

I can tell by the way you look at me,
one eyebrow cocked upward while
examining my so called perfection.
Completely astonished by my beauty,
the beauty I don't even see in myself.
Peering out of the right corners
of your deep brown eyes
without tilting your head at
even the slightest angle
because you don't want me to know
you still think about me.
But I've noticed you can't look away.
You can't look away
because that may be the last time
you ever see my face.
And the thought of that being
your last chance to catch a glimpse
at my sparkling blue eyes
destroys you.
You just can't look away,
and that's how I know you still love me
(even though you wish you didn't).

1 year ago - I remember you messing up your locker combination over and over again, just to make me laugh;

11 months ago - I remember you taking every opportunity you could to talk to me, even about the simplest things. You were so nervous, but honestly, so was I;

10 months ago - I remember you finally getting up the nerve to take the next step but getting too nervous and backing out before anything too serious happened;

9 months ago - I remember keeping in touch with you the whole summer and, in August, being alone together for the first time. You wouldn't dare make a move just yet, though. You had a plan;

8 months ago - I remember being back in school together, growing closer, falling faster;

7 months ago - I remember you being too scared to say a word, so I'd always be the one to start up conversations. But finally, one September night, I remember being alone at that football game and you putting your arm around mine;

And 6 months ago - I wish I could forget, because that's when you and I fell apart.

Since then, it's been 26 painfully tense weeks /
183 days of anxious avoidance / 4,380 hours of regret /
262,800 minutes of missing the way things used to be.

But through all this time,
all these billions of seconds later,
I still get that same exact feeling
every time I hear your name.

And I guess what I'm getting at is:
is it really that foolish of me to believe that
you could still feel the same?

Because yes,
I know that it's been 6 whole months since we fell apart,
but after all, it did take us that same amount of time
to fall together.

They say all good things take time,
yet the result of our love,
so cautiously constructed
upon months of fragile glances
and nervous conversations,
disappeared, lost among the constellations,
shattered by sunrise.

The hurt in my heart, however,
lasted what felt like a lifetime,
until one day the pain
decided to fade.

By the heat of the blazing sun,
which burnt from the burdens
of my innermost heart,
came a delicate dawn of hope,
a hope so grand
that it convinced me
to abandon my fears
and pursue the one thing
I'd feared the most.

So within a mere, fragile second,
as time once stripped away
the feelings I held for you,
so will it restore my desire
to mend the broken pieces
which the sun so brutally shattered.

I now give you my word,
a vow to disregard the calendars
with constant reminders of our distance,
and to trust in time.

For although I have come to learn
that time itself is a dangerous thing,
I have faith that it will bring us together
once more.

Just as I'm about to give up,
you give me yet another reason to hold on,
but I can't afford to feel this way much longer;
I can't keep fighting for something
when I don't remember what it is I'm fighting for.

So in order to feel at peace
and get rid of this dark cloud
that's been circling over me,
there's something I must do,
or rather, something I must say to you.

I surrender.

I give in to your perfect smile
and your chocolate brown eyes,
the ones that make me melt every time.

I submit to the sound of your voice
and the way it carries me from a world I fear
into the safety of your arms.

I no longer resist the urge to look your way,
the need to know if you're looking back at me,
because I do not fear your observation;
I only welcome it.

I allow you to see the feelings I've suppressed
in this war between the good in my heart
and the mess in my mind.

Because I surrender, not for you,
but because I think it's about time.

He makes me feel a way you never once did,
but you both made me feel something.

He and I talk like we're best friends,
but we used to have conversations like strangers,
getting to know each other better
with each and every word.

And even though he makes me feel
just as happy as I felt with you,
I don't get a rush when I hear him say my name;
I don't look for him in a crowded room.

So I guess I just can't figure out
whether I fell for him to get over you
or so that he could lead me back.

I do my best writing in the dark,
for it is in the absence of light
that I see you most vividly.

But I'm sure to do all my thinking in the day,
because the sun helps melt away the vision
of your chocolate brown eyes,
carried throughout my memories.

But although your appearance sometimes fades
and the sound of your voice I forget more quickly
than half of my classmates' names,
I will forever hold onto our unforgettable moments
oh-so tightly within my brain.

Because how could I erase the first time we spoke,
or our last goodnight at that football game?
Don't think I'll neglect all the good times we had
just because the two of us are no longer the same.

And who could disregard that summer day,
where I first heard you speak my name,
or each and every one of our conversations
and the silly reasons for which they came?

I know it may seem like I'm filled with hate
from the decision that you made,
but in all honesty I still cling to the hope
that we will be together someday.

So please help me to hold on;
give me the faith that I desire
so that our burnt-out flame can be reborn
into an eternal fire.

And trust in your intuition
so that it can allow you to see
that I am still in love with you
and you were always in love with me.

We tell lies
to reveal the truth
which in itself is too honest
to be revealed.

We trick our minds
into believing false realities
so that we can feel at least
the slightest bit healed.

This is how the broken heart beats;
this is how we get on.
And to protect my own fractured heart,
I told myself to move on.

Pick up the pieces he shattered,
and allow him no excuse.
Leave within a timely fashion,
and no further conclusions shall you deduce.

Let things be as they may
before you get even more hurt.
Take your heart with you in its entirety
and leave him to be with her.

I know this is a task among tasks,
a trial of great tribulation,
but without following these careful instructions,
your heart will require ventricular fibrillation.

And I guarantee some hurt will remain,
but that is surely a good thing,
because if you did not feel at all,
then your heart would not be working.

So continue to be a warrior.
Fight with lack of speech rather than word.
And let the silence speak to him
louder than a piercing sword.

It may take some time,
but in his mind will your reason be sealed,
because if you walk the path of the broken,
you will at last be healed.

An angel stripped of her halo,
locked in a dungeon
of self-doubt and heartbreak,
longs to be saved.

She dreams of her knight in shining armor
rescuing her from the fear onto which she clings,
the same fear that stifles her uttermost dreams.

But her saving grace must fight his own battle,
a ferocious war between the good he once found in her heart
and the evil that still plagues his own mind.

The bright light that used to shine from within her eyes
has lessened to a mere glimmer of fluctuating hope,
and her once supple lips have slowly but steadily dried,
for it has been so long since they tasted freedom.

But what must it take for this beauty to be saved?

She has been taken from a world of wonder,
a planet of peaceful longing and generous love,
into an isolated cell unto which no living being has stumbled.

For this prison is within her own mind.

And it is up to her
to save herself.

It is yet to be ten o'clock
and the lights in my room
are already off
because only in the darkness
of my deepest dreams
am I able to see you.

Yes, I see you in the halls at school,
but no reality will ever again
allow me to see
the feelings I swear
you once had for me.

So I drift off into a deep, deep sleep...

A shimmering glimmer of thoughts
fades into a distorted actuality
where we smile and seem happy
as if we're in some sort of
Alice-in-Wonderland-type fantasy.

All the pain and heartbreak disappears peacefully
into an abyss of oblivion,
down a black-hole of bad memories
and missed opportunities
that torment me in the daylight.

And in that exact moment,
you decide to wander into
the unoccupied cavities
of my innermost mind,
thus beginning the same dream
I live out every night:

It seems I'm in a car,
heading down a long, straight stretch of road,
one that, every time, I swear I've never once seen.

I'm surrounded by a sea of busy people,
like black and white dots fluttering around
amidst a broken television screen.

But the two of us are in no hurry
to get where we want to go,
because we have no plan but to drive
down this long, straight stretch of road.

So I gaze out the window and roll it down
to weave my fingers through the breeze,
propping my bare feet up against the dash
because it makes me feel free.

I hear you laugh that adorable laugh
as I turn my head to see
your curious gaze wondering
how you came to be so lucky.

And it is right then
that through those deep brown eyes,
I'm able to read every single thought
that passes through your mind.

I know you wish
you could jump inside mine,
but little do you know
you do almost every single night...

So as the dream goes on,
so does the same old road,
taking us God-knows-where
in however much time we please.

Having no destination makes us feel free
from all the burdens brought unto us
by this monster we call reality.

But just as the other cars start to leave
and we begin picking up some speed,
a bright red light puts a brief end to our journey.

And even though this light eventually turns green,
the road that lies ahead is not what it seems,
for it twists and turns differently in every dream,
throwing us for loops that we'd never once seen.

And all of a sudden,
I'm jolted from my sleep,
awoken by a harsh reminder
that comes from within me.

We can only be together
between the hours of 10 and 2,
because in each of my dreams,
we're just driving,
unaware of the reality we'll wake up to.

Sometimes I can't help but take a moment
and picture how we might've been different today
if on that early October day,
I hadn't decided to walk away.

I can't help but question
what we'd be like now
if instead,
I had chosen to stay.

As I lie awake at night
or even sit outside
in broad daylight,
the toxic thoughts penetrate my mind,
and they never fail
to take me back
to that late-September night.

I see me sitting next to you,
your arm around mine,
nervous glances being exchanged
in the quiet of an otherwise
chaotic night.

Next I'm forced to relive
our innocent goodbye,
when you walked me to the gate
and said, "Goodnight."

Then time flashes forward
to the day everything changed,
when I found out the reason
you'd been acting so strange.

I can't forget hearing
her three-syllable name.
I swear I nearly went insane.

I see the pain in my eyes as a single drop
begins the seemingly unending river of tears,
streaming from the same eyes you used to gaze into
and down past the lips you never got a chance to kiss.

I see myself cutting you out of my life,
not slowly, but all at once,
like ripping off a bandage
because I'd foolishly thought
that would lessen the pain.

I listen to myself saying "no" to you
when, for the past two months,
I would've given anything for you to ask me
so I could've finally said "yes."

I see all of this over and over again,
unable to stop it,
unable to remind myself
that I made the right choice
in leaving you.

All I can picture is the future I lost,
more vividly than I can see
the world right in front of me.

All I can imagine is this:

Your sweaty palm nervously inching toward mine.
My face blushing with anticipation as our hands become entwined.

Wrapping our arms around each other just to stay warm
and cuddling beside the fire in the midst of a snow storm.

The two of us slow-dancing in the middle of the pouring rain
because when you're in love, who cares if you look insane?

Tears streaming down my face as I cry on your shoulder;
my best friend and I are fighting, but you promise it'll be over.

Kissing at a red light that soon fades to green,
cars honking at us because they don't know what it means
to have fallen for someone outside of your dreams
and into his arms like a movie scene.

...that is what I see.

I imagine us doing all the things
we never got to do,
and I almost hate myself
for killing my own chance
at happiness with you.

But then I close my eyes
and block it all out.

All the moments,
the memories,
the what-ifs,
they're gone.

All I see is complete and total darkness.

But no matter how tightly I close my eyes,
I'll never be able to make the thought of you
into merely a memory.

No matter how badly I wish to move on,
our pasts will always be intertwined,
and we will be linked indefinitely.

And nothing I do will ever change the reality
that you'll forever be much more than a memory
to me.

I'd be lying if I said I never saw this coming.
I did, I just didn't think it'd get to this point,
that we'd get to this point.

But here I am and there you are.
You see, the two of us aren't even a "we" anymore,
because no combination of you and I
will ever again form that connection,
not after what you did.

I'm truly sorry things had to happen this way,
but I'm not sorry I ever loved you,
because that's not something I'd want to forget.
And I don't think you should forget it either.

I'm sorry you had to make the decision you did,
but I'm not sorry that by the time you'd made up your mind,
I'd already made up mine.

I'm sorry you acted on your feelings
before you knew what they truly were,
but I'm not sorry for that night
and the way we felt about each other.

And lastly, I'm sorry you hurt me.

And I hope that someday,
you're strong enough to admit
that you're sorry too.