first you will cry. you will feel every emotion that you've ever felt being washed
down the drain and you will taste the sour, bittersweet heaviness of sobbing at 4:35 a.m. on your lips and you will scream so quietly it will be a whisper to others
but a clap of thunder inside of you and your lungs will stop working and your
ribs will feel as if they were collapsing and you will not be able to walk the next
day because you will feel as heavy as a truck full of rocks

next you will be silent. you won't speak you won't nod your head you won't smile
you won't write you won't move; you will suddenly be able to feel your bones and your stomach caving inwards inside of you and your skeleton will become so thick with the secret carvings in your skin that it will
be a labyrinth that even you will not dare to explore and the world will continue
to spin, everything will go on and you will just stay numb to keep yourself
from falling apart

then you will hate him. you will curse every single being that pushed you to talk to him you will rant about what a terrible person he was and how ****** up your love was in the first place and that it hadn't meant anything and you will say he was just another burning star in the sky you will say his light has started to fade you will say he never cared about anything you will say it doesn't matter and you will yell until your voice is raw and your throat is hurting and you will go to sleep silently wishing that the tears on your cheeks would stop pouring and you will feel an inner self loathing at the core of your chest for being so stupid, for caring about him in the first place, for being pathetic enough to keep all of his things neatly in a box at the corner of your closet because you cannot bear to throw any of it away

then he will call you.

he will make you question every single thought you've ever had, every single moral you had created for yourself and he will tear down your walls with an ax made out of love and nostalgia and he will say he still loves you and he will say that leaving was a mistake and he will make you remember the memories you had blocked out he will give you a new phone number and you will attempt to talk to him but it won't feel the same and all your old conversations have been deleted all your photos are no longer on your wall and you will realize that you are in love with the memories you had together, not who he actually is and you will still cry at night sometimes and you will still be overwrought with anxiety and helplessness and your heart will become a boat sailing on rocky waters but you will be okay.

the word finally will come on a cold tuesday morning and you will be rushing to get to school because you overslept and you will search desperately for your red sweater but you will not find it and you will mutter every curse word you know and pray that your mother doesn't hear you and you will stumble across his sweatshirt and you will throw it on lazily and run to school and you will forget all about it until somebody asks if you like that band and you will smile confusedly and say that you haven't listened to them in a while and you will go home and he will not call you and you will not care because the word finally is branded on your chest and it means that you have moved on. it means that your lungs still work and your ribs are in the right place and you will go to sleep that night with the taste of happiness on the tip of your tongue and it will not matter that he was toxic, it will not matter that all the flowers you grew together have died, in that moment you will feel better than you have in months and you will realize that you are okay, your boat will not sink the storm is over the aftermath has passed and you will be okay.

(h.l.)