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Heartbreak Motel
France    There are roses in between my thighs and fire that surrounds you
celestial heartbreak
kentucky    stuck somewhere between being something and being so insignificant

Poems

Kelly Bitangcol Jun 2017
Let me tell you the story about the 6 people I’ve met. Let me just say first that they are famous. They are always talked about. But don’t envy me or feel anything bad, because don’t worry, you will meet them all too. Or perhaps, you have probably met them. You probably met some of them already. We all did. Now I will tell you the story of when I met them, of where I met them, and how I met them.



I first met Happiness when my mom bought me my dream barbie doll. I was so eager to have it and seeing my mom holding it made me feel.. incredible. I couldn’t explain it at first because I was so young, I didn’t know emotions yet but when someone named Happiness came, I immediately knew what I felt. Happiness stayed with me for a long time, happiness was with me during my 7th birthday when I had a party. Happiness was with me when I became the first honor of my class. Happiness was with me when I watched the Hannah Montana movie. Happiness was with me when I traveled with my whole family, when we were all together. To sum it up, Happiness was with me when I was young. And when I grew older, Happiness needed to leave. I begged Happiness, “Please don’t go.”, like Happiness was my father leaving us, like Happiness was my childhood friend moving to another country. But Happiness told me, “I need to.”


And then nostalgia came. Nostalgia came when I missed my barbie dolls. Nostalgia was with me when I was listening to Best of Both Worlds and all the memories of being a Hannah Montana fan came back. Nostalgia was with me when I was looking at the old pictures of me and my family. Nostalgia was with me when I was looking for my shirt and I suddenly saw my dress when I was a baby that reminded me of my childhood. Nostalgia was with me when I was missing what it felt like to have a complete family. Nostalgia was with me when I wished to be just a little kid playing barbie dolls with no worries in life. Nostalgia made me miss Happiness more, and made me wonder when will Happiness come back. And then Nostalgia left, and another person came. I was hoping the person would be Happiness, the person wasn’t.


A person named Loneliness came unwanted. Loneliness came the first time I had a failing grade. Loneliness was with my side when my friend needed to move to another school. Loneliness was with me when I was no longer an honor student. Loneliness was with me when my mom scolded me about my low grades and I locked myself inside the bathroom, alone, crying, and I didn’t have someone, only Loneliness. Loneliness was with me when I was growing up. Loneliness was with me when I was compared to other people, and they were better than me. Loneliness was with me when I lost everything. Loneliness was with me when I became a nobody. Loneliness was with me for a long period of time. Loneliness was like a friend who I never wanted to be with, a friend who I hated so much, but that friend won’t just go away no matter how hard you try, and no matter how hard I try Loneliness will never be a friend to me. But Loneliness told me, “Don’t worry. I will leave soon. I won’t be here forever.” And so Loneliness left.


And this strange, mysterious, indescribable person came. The person was named Love. And I thought, “Oh, so this is the famous Love.” I wanted to tell Love I wasn’t ready to meet you yet, but I didn’t know Love would come, Love came unexpectedly. Love came when I met you. Love was with me when you held my hands. Love was with me when I felt safe in your arms. Love was with me when I was reading Murakami. Love was with me the first time I wrote poetry. Love was with me when my best friend told me she would never leave me. I didn’t know why Love came, but I didn’t want Love to leave. But just like everyone and everything else, Love wasn’t meant to last.


And so heartbreak came. I met Heartbreak two summers ago when you told me you would leave me. Heartbreak was with me when I saw you with someone else that wasn’t me. Heartbreak was with me when I wasn’t accepted at my dream school. Heartbreak was with me when I didn’t win the poetry contest I worked hard for. Heartbreak was with me when my best friend suddenly became a stranger. Heartbreak was with me when I saw sadness and disappoint in my mother’s eyes. Heartbreak was a ****** person. I couldn’t wait Heartbreak to leave. But Heartbreak was with me a little longer than I wanted Heartbreak to be. And when Heartbreak will finally leave, I asked a question emotionally, “Are you related to Loneliness or what?” and Heartbreak responded, “No. As much as I’m the opposite, I’m the twin of Love.”


And a beautiful person named Hope came. Hope came when the storm was finally over. Hope was with me when I decided to write again. Hope was with me when I see people believing in my strength. Hope was with me when I looked in the mirror and told myself, “I can survive all of this.” Hope was with me when I watched the film Dead Poets Society. Hope was with me when I saw the most genuine smiles of my family. Hope was with me when I helped myself and became better. Hope was with me when I found myself. And I was hoping Hope would never leave.


But then I learned the truth about these 6 people. These 6 people, they leave, and they come back, in no particular order. Happiness came back when I made my family proud. Happiness came back when I met you. And suddenly Loneliness arrived again in the middle night, but good thing I was stronger now and I made Loneliness leave sooner. Nostalgia came again when I heard this one song that reminded me of my friends. And then Love, Love was here again. And Love confessed, “I am the only one who can be with you always, but sometimes another person makes you feel something more. I was with you since the beginning. I am with you every time you’re with your family and friends. No matter what you’re feeling, I am with you every time you’re with the people that mean so much to you.” And the horrible person named Heartbreak came back again, and as usual, it was ****. But I’m starting to accept Heartbreak’s presence. And I’m currently with Hope. I was with Hope when I attended my first rally last year, when I saw the people who can help change the world and make it a better place. Hope is with me every time I see people who help each other, even if they don’t know each other personally, even if they knew each other on the internet. Hope is with me when I see people never giving up. Hope is with me while I’m writing this piece. And when I knew the truth about these 6 people, I accepted it. I accepted the people I don’t want to leave will do, and the people I don’t want to come back will do. I accepted they’re always here. I accepted they will be here unexpectedly, I accepted that any of them will come sooner or later. And when that time comes, I will greet the person, whoever the person is, “Welcome back.”


*(k.b)
fray narte Sep 2021
Eyes. Heartbreak is her sunlit memory barely held by a wooden clothespin. It hangs and glares before your eyes, mocking as it fades into an empty filmstrip. Heartbreak is a lost soul left to perish in her ghost-town, and warmer sunsets are lifetimes away. A wonderwall left standing, pinned polaroids, desperate scratches. You had fought hard and long, for this, but homes are made for breaking and crumbling and leaving, especially in the losing side.

Mouth. Heartbreak is a paper-tag of a goodbye caught in her lips. It is a metaphor that melts at the soft space under your tongue, a certain bittersweet taste made for drowning with a cold lager, a stranger’s whispers, and the perils of his unfiltered cigarette kiss. Heartbreak is taming a manic scream into a delicate, defeated sigh, out of sync with the way she breathed. But then sighing still hurts, and breathing still hurts because you’re alive – you’re so ******* alive for this unbuffered pain.

Chest. Heartbreak is begging your chest not to break amid a listzomaniac rush. Heartbreak is a prosaic throbbing, a treacherous ***** stuck in your ribs, begging to be held like it doesn’t hurt. Heartbreak is a site of buried lavender lithiums, asking for a eulogy; but silence is equally as oppressive. It is your body betraying you, like a city undone by its smokes. It is a quiet word – not a poem, because poems are beautiful despite the pain, and this isn’t. This isn’t.

Hands. Heartbreak is your shaky hand flipping through the last three pages of a tragedy — a heroine dies, a stray star falls, a maiden leaves on a horse-drawn carriage. There is no changing of the ending. Heartbreak is reaching for the empty space in bed, leaving your fingers in technicolored bruises. How can emptiness break one’s bones? Heartbreak is scrubbing your skin dry, raw, and untouchable where she once laid her kisses. Heartbreak is your nails digging through her letters in utter despair — for invisible ink, a promise in the postscript, an estranged lover in familiar flesh, only to find torn sheets, spilled wine, and finality.

Legs. Heartbreak is coming home to ***** laundry all over these cold, wistful floors. Heartbreak is walking in hushed tiptoes only to trip and fall down a memory lane – a kaleidoscope of all the wounds that can possibly hurt. It is catching an empty train to somewhere unloving her is possible – doable. Heartbreak is teaching your legs to run away from the chaos of her naked skin, and not to fall at her feet. But still, you fall and you fall and you break what’s left of your bones chasing after something that’s already gone – long before it has said goodbye. So turn your back and hold your heart — it breaks harder, louder, and worse before it settles down and sits as quiet aching: a forgotten filmstrip, a soundless breath, a calm poem, a serene night.
Mikaila  Jun 2013
Heartbreak Girl
Mikaila Jun 2013
They tell you it gets better.
I will tell you the truth.
I am good at telling truth
And bad at being heard.
I hear your sorrow.
I see that your blood
Trickles like tears
Like mine.
I'm telling you what they're afraid to say
Because they don't want you quitting.
Selfish little children,
Tell you your pain isn't valid,
That it will flee if you wait.
Darling, I saw it in your eyes.
I heard you break.
And I'll tell you, I wish you'd seen me.
Back when I was being told what you are.
"It'll get better, time heals all wounds."
I wish you'd seen me raw as a skinned ****,
Fresh and ready for chopping.
I wish you'd seen my eyes when my guard toppled and I was truth.
I'm telling you now,
My truth,
And I think it's yours too,
Heartbreak Girl.
They're lying to you.

Don't be discouraged, don't be sad,
You've gotten through
You're getting through
The worst.
But they like to say-
Them, they, the people who care but don't know-
They like to say it goes away like a cut scars.
We both know about that, don't we,
Heartbreak Girl?

They're lying to you.
What happens is this.
Healing happens, yes, healing
After a fashion.
But not in the way you want it to.
Healing from love is not healing from injury.
It's not a broken arm which can be set and cast and grown back
Like new
With only a little crack along the edge
Fixed with a pin or a *****,
A stitch or two,
And a pale shiny line along the place where your skin
Parted ways with the rest of you.
No, love like this,
Broken love,
Heartbreak Girl,
It doesn't heal quite right.
It's like the old man down the street
Who was shot in the war,
And they had to cut his fingers off.
Little stubs left behind,
That feel like they're whole but they don't grab like they used to.
He loses things.
Not big things, not always. Not everything. Not life.
But it's never the same after.
That is what losing a love is like.
A heartbreak isn't a break,
It's a hole.
A whole hole that means you'll never be...
Whole.

It's something you find that time doesn't treat the way they all say.
Time Heals All Wounds.
It's a true statement, in essence,
But not literally. Not in actuality.
What time lends is distance.
Takes a lot longer than you'd think-
Just ask that old man-
To learn to live without your hand.
I'm giving it to you straight,
Heartbreak Girl,
You'll live again. You'll walk again.
But you'll always have a limp.
See?

It will feel like they all lied, all that time.
A long ******* time.
Longer than you can respect yourself for taking
Over some stupid boy
Who broke your heart.
A long ******* time,
And you'll be ashamed,
But you'll just keep on
Keeping on.
And if you do that,
Heartbreak Girl,
One day you'll find you have learned
To live around your loss.
Because it's not him you miss,
I promise you that.
You think it is, but it isn't.
You miss the you that you became by loving him.
And that's a very personal loss
Deep.
Tender.
Right down to the marrow,
And it takes TIME
To even wrap your head around the damage you can do to yourself
Over somebody else.

It's like that man in the commercial
The one about quitting smoking.
Ever seen it?
He sits down trying to have his morning coffee without his cigarette
Day after day
And he can't figure it out.
Pours his cream on his pants
Dumps the sugarbowl instead of spooning it in.
Tries to drink the stuff without using the handle on the cup.
He's a mess,
Heartbreak Girl.
He's you.
He's me too.
Trying to relearn everything we used to do
With that love of ours burning in our fingers.
Love makes you an addict
Loss, a *******.
But you learn.
At the end of the commercial,
He takes a sip,
And he smiles, and I always smile too,
Because that means that if you keep going,
Inch by inch you'll take your life back from this loss.
It's dumb, but that commercial always meant a lot to me.
It was on,
Heartbreak Girl,
The days when I couldn't eat for missing her.
When every moment was made of fear
That I would see something that would tear me open and make me miss her
Make me re-realize that she was over
(And so was I.)
(The me I loved, whose ghost I still look at in the mirror behind me.)
(The me I never got to say goodbye to before she died.)

I'm giving you the facts, Heartbreak Girl.
Time isn't medicine.
It's not nepenthe.
It's just time.
Time for you to learn and grow and become stronger,
Stand up again and say,
"Okay. I lost him. I lost me.
But I will create a new life."
I won't be one of them
The people who care so much
That they lie to you that you'll be
Good as new.
You're already new,
New and old.
Damaged, wearier, a little worn around the edges of your soul.
You're mourning,
Heartbreak Girl.
Mourning the loss of an innocence you didn't know to treasure
Until you lost it.
That you are
angryscaredhurtbetrayedamazed
You will never have the chance to relinquish of your own will.

But
Heartbreak Girl
Like that man down the street with no fingers
Who learned to play his guitar a new way
Like the one in the commercial
Who took his first sip of coffee and realized he hadn't lost his mornings after all
Like me
When I held a funeral for myself in my back yard
Trying to let go of loving her
When I finally, a year and a half later,
Woke up with a smile on my face and allowed it to stick around for a while.
Like us,
You will have your day
You will make new music
You will take that sip
You will accept your loss
And find a smile
Because there is,
Heartbreak Girl,
So much to smile about
When you have lost so much.