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.