No, You Didn’t Make Me A Better Person When You Broke My Heart

This is for you. The you that I know is somewhere in you. The you that I met in the first place. The you that I hope is still there.

The you that I met so long ago feels like such a fantasy. It feels like a mirage, almost like a daydream I just woke up from. Like I was asleep for a year and a half and only just woke up to meet this new person. I feel like I don’t know you anymore.

When I met you, I felt like I got it right. How could anyone be suffering in love when you were so wonderful? Was I just lucky to find you as my first love? How did anyone pass this up, this feeling that felt so magical?

I don’t know which is the fake you anymore. Is it the you that spun me around the fire, telling me where we’ll run away to someday? Or should I believe that version is still in there somewhere, and this person who seems to have no heart is really a demon possessing you, convincing me someone like you is so incapable of love?

I wish I could convince myself that this is just a wall you’ve built up. A defense mechanism to prevent yourself from being hurt again. But if it was, how could you cause me so much pain? How could someone who’s felt this hurt want to cause it on another person?

I ask myself what I could’ve done differently all the time. I ask myself, What did you want that I couldn’t give? I poured every piece of me, every last drop, into trying to be good enough for you. I wasn’t ever going to be good enough for you. No matter how much love I gave, it would never be enough to fill the love you were unwilling to give me.

I tore myself apart, desperately trying to keep the tiny thread holding us together from breaking. I found the harder I tried to stay afloat, the heavier the anchor you used to drown us.

I begged God to tell me what to do. I sat on my knees praying for something to change. I screamed at god when he took you away. What was meant to be a blessing felt like a curse, like a punishment, as if I were paying for my sins by losing the other half of my soul. I didn’t understand what I did to deserve this pain, this never-ending heartache. The more I pray, the more I scream and curse at God, the heavier my stomach sinks with the realization that you’re gone, and I’ll never get the closure I need.

Maybe you were only sent into my life to teach me a lesson; maybe you were meant to be temporary. Maybe I was just naive to think anything you said was real. Maybe you’ll read this and tell all your friends once again how crazy I am and laugh about how you convinced an innocent heart to break, how funny it is to watch my soul ripped from my body, stumbling around lifeless, trying to find reasons to stay afloat.

But you’ll never understand the damage you did to me. You’ll never get the chance to see the scars you left. You’ll never feel the emptiness, the numbness I felt while trying to sleep without you the first time. You won’t see the tossing and turning when you pop up in my nightmares. All I ever have anymore is nightmares.

I’ve tried finding myself again. I tried turning this heartache into a journey of self-discovery that I could someday tell my daughter about when her first love rips her heart from her chest. But I couldn’t.

There was no old me to turn back to—she was gone. She was burned to ashes. The new me is still learning to bloom in such harsh conditions.

I hope someday I can confidently say I came out stronger, but for now I can say I’m surviving, which I guess is more strength than I realized I had before.