It took me

ten

or more

days

Before I could stop crying.

Two.

Before I was able to sit comfortably in the same room as her

Though

we had to be far away from eachother.

I was able to eat after it.

I love food too much to give it up over

Her.

It took me a month to stop thinking about her.

It took me three months and 2 significant others to get over her.

I thought I was okay, I dated them, and was reminded of everything she did.

I still haven't gotten rid of the paranoia.

I am over her by now, it's been over a year, but it will take a long time to get over the first.

It always takes so long.

Have you ever heard the cries of a dying star?

I have;

It's the most profound yet excruciating sound erupting in the darkest parts of the Universe as it's being devoured by the pain.

A part of it lost forever.

That’s the thing about giving parts of your heart to unworthy people…

You can’t get those pieces back.

now, i've never had a tendency to alcohol or addicted to nicotine.

but without her i felt like i was missing what i had been leaning on for so long.

shaky, unstable, falling and falling.

falling down instead of in love.

i missed her,

but i never cried.

i was numb, mourning for the feelings that were ghosting me, leaving and just beyond reach-

i could never reach them again .

during heartbreak,

your heart beats fast (from trembling)

your stomach is eating at itself (from anxiety, regret, anger)

your palms are sweaty (what did i do wrong? how did i mess up?)

you can't speak straight (memories demand your full attention)

it's funny,

all the withdrawal symptons from heartbreak feel a lot like butterflies and their entourage.

Sometimes I look back and I realize I was in love with a manipulative bitch.

She'd go from sobbing on my shoulder to screaming all of my flaws at me. And the next day, it was like nothing happened. She talked to me, she made jokes, and all the while, her cruel words were stuck in my head.

I always wondered if she just forgot. I wished I could forget that easily.

It's hard to break up when you were never together.

Like there was one time, over the summer, where I invited her and a friend over.

And she ended up kissing my friend there, in my backyard.

They dated for months, and I cried. I cried in the shower and I hid. I hid because now I had a sexuality to question, a gender to question.

Suddenly I was questioning everything.

Then I asked her out and she said yes.

But she moved to Sweden for a year.

I kept waiting for her to text me.

Nothing.

Then one day she texted me and started ranting about her boyfriend and I cried some more because I thought we had something. I thought she had finally noticed me, but no.

Nothing.

I was never anything to her. But she was everything to me.

A chance gift became my prized possession.

It went on for years. I'd finally think I'd found her and then I'd lose her again.

I wonder: did she know how much she hurt me? Did she know the scars, verbal and emotional, that she left on me?

Did she enjoy that?

I wonder, did she revel in my sobs, even when she couldn't hear them?

Did she ever regret telling me I was too scared, too weak, to die?

Does she even remember?

Or am I just another passing fad, another face in her cloak woven from broken hearts?

Sometimes I still cry when I think of her, although my crush faded a long time ago.

Because she taught me who I was, and at the same time, took it away.

I just remember feeling numb when I first realized I was heartbroken. You never notice, at least I never did, until it hits you like a piano that fell out of an airplane. I think I started to break at work when I was filling the spinach tray at the salad bar. We talked about spinach. You always think of the stupidest shit, at least I always do, once you start falling. You find some random page and let your eyes wander. We talked about his dislike for spinach, laughed at me mistakenly grabbing vegan butter instead of real butter, joked about him throwing away clothes since he didn’t know how to do laundry. My eyes were watering before I realized it, and I ended up lying to my coworker that we needed more croutons and rubbing my eyes raw next to the salad cooler.

It’s one thing to get dumped. I’ve been dumped before and dumped people before. It stings a little, like when you pull off a long-stuck adhesive and spend the whole time your skin is burning touching the damn thing, and wondering when it will stop hurting. It’s another thing to learn you never had a chance. To feel unworthy, even if it’s no one’s fault. To know that even when you knew getting too close was risky, you fell off that cliff and now you’re paralyzed, pissed at yourself because you just had to go look to see what was down there.

It’s no one’s fault. That’s my mantra now. That and counting the ways this was a good thing. I’ve found quite a few. I can write things that aren’t centered on him, there’s no little jolt of joy when I hear my phone followed by the longing for him to come back, I’d feel nothing if he came walking back in once I answered the door and would happily close the door once he decided to leave again. Still, he seeps in my mind from time to time (Exhibit A - writing about him again), but it’s happier times. Me and the person he killed to become his optimal self. That guy taught me a lot. Taught me that drunken love can feel real, that I can find someone that will go above my already high demands, that I can have a genuine connection with someone.

It hurts still; otherwise, I wouldn’t have stuck my face near the onions and said they made me cry when my coworker came to check on me. But, I’m well past the very bottom of the hill, and I’m only going up from now on. One day, I’ll find the man of my dreams, and I hope he will too.

I was 16 in the summer of 1977. His name was David and he was 19. Some of the most beautiful music ever written was on repeat in my cassette player. I fell in love that summer. I fell in love with his look, his smell and the kind, gentle person he was. He had beautiful golden brown eyes, long eyelashes, soft black hair, a wispy mustache, and he smelled of British Sterling. I longed to be with him every minute of every day.

I saw him mostly on weekends and holidays that summer. When I wasn’t with him, I carried a piece of cloth saturated in that cologne and kept it near to remind me of him. I put it on my pillow. He wrote me letters. They were always signed the same way. “Keep the peace and spread the faith”. I loved that.

In late August school would start again. David, of course had graduated. I wouldn’t see him until the following Spring for break. Sadness was beginning.

The last time I saw him was a big end of the season party. David was there, arriving fashionably late. He looked amazing and we danced together in the big barn under the stars.

It was there where he lifted my chin, looked into my eyes with all of his glory and said “I know how you feel about me. Because of our age difference, it would be wrong of me to let this go any further”. He gently kissed me on the cheek, turned and left. I never saw him again.

I never forgot David. My heart hurt for so long after that and for a long time it was he whom I compared all other men. That loss was crushing and all encompassing. It was he who filled my thoughts and dreams. I carried a small bottle of his cologne in my bag for years.

The day I met him on a tennis court, the song Butterflies are Free to Fly by Elton John was playing on the boom box. I still think of him 40 years later when I hear that song. He taught me what a true gentleman was. How eloquent he was.

Keep the peace and spread the faith.