nothing hurt more than this.

i was watching you, watching her.

and i looked away pretending to smile at the dinner table with all our friends

i tried to swallow away the lump in my throat

push out the sinking feeling in my chest.

i dont hold anything against you. I have so much peace that has grown in place of all the hurt, and I only wish you well.

in a way, thank you

i’ve made so much peace on it, but you really truly hurt me when you did that.

and it took a while to be okay, and I hated myself for so long for being so affected by it. it took so long to rewrite the script in my head—the ‘ashamed’ embarrassed, isolated, alone, afraid—— the not enough.

but i am now exponentially stronger because of it.

so in a way,

thank you.

i knew i was okay when i saw your name on my phone and it didn’t hurt anymore to see it

i know that I love him. But, I also know enough about us to be sure he isnt the one for me. We arent the ones for each other.

“one day,” she says to me; my mother looking down at me in total awe of the baby cacooned up in blankets in my arms. My baby. Mum continues, “this is not going to be easy. but, one day, when you’re sitting at the kitchen table alone with a tea in hand, you realise you’d take every hard day and relive it again and again, over and over, if it meant getting to hold them safe in your arms again.”

maybe moving on is the best thing that ever happened to us

i think i have always loved him. in a way that is constant, underneath all the busyness of my heart. like the solid firm foundation holding a building up and keeping it steady. i love him like that.

I dont regret it

But then sometimes I do.

In the kind of way you regret eating another sweet when you know you shouldnt and then it makes your tummy hurt. You knew you shouldnt do it, you knew it wasnt going to make you feel good. But you did it anyway. Then afterwards you think “hmm maybe I shouldnt have done that, but its okay because it was good while it lasted.”

Sometimes I feel like that kind of regret. I knew what was coming but I did it anyway, and now I wish I could have stopped myself, but I know it would have happened either way. And the lesson I learned from it is far greater than anything I would have gained without it.

healing is a very odd thing.

because one day day

without even a thought

everything will be at peace

and you almost forget

all the pain and and hurt

and the that war waged

on your fragile beautiful heart

the brightest burning and loudest stars

are always the ones who have suffered

the most in the silence.

nobody tells you about the aftermath

the part where you're losing feelings gradually

but in some hidden back corner of your heart, you're trying to grip onto fading hope

the part where you don't really want them anymore

and you're sure of that

but you're not really okay about it.

this weird in-between period of

de-attaching yourself

re-writing this person in your brain.

and the almost-grief that pursues you

as you watch your heart cleave itself of the one

who once was everything to you.

but now

my parents house is not

my home

and i get nervous

when i’m there alone

as if im an intruder in a space i once fit perfectly

and i can hear the walls echoing

as they try to figure it out

because the young girl who once walked these halls

is all grown up now

sometimes i wonder

what has to be wrong with me

if no one has ever looked at me

long enough

to want all of me

forever

“i just wanted to say that you look the prettiest in your oversized jumper and no makeup on

and seeing you smile is enough to make my heart happy until i’m old and grey “

i told myself youd break my heart. i told myself this a million times

i was trying so hard for this part not to sting

but it does.

it stings hard.