How to Break Your Own Heart in 10 Easy Steps

One.

Allow yourself to forget

That there are few things

More dangerous

And ill-advised

Than deciding to want someone

Without any expectation

Or indication

Of reciprocated affection.

Two.

Dive head first

Into an ocean of your own imagining

Where the water is warm

And bluer than even his eyes

Where kaleidoscopic fish dance

In between coral of fantastic shapes

And all is well and beautiful

Because this is a world you made.

Three.

Take every word and savour it

Like an overgrown child

Sucking on a fast vanishing sweet.

Mistake politeness for curiosity,

Ascribe meaning to coincidence,

And memorize every interaction

As if it is the beginning of forever.

Four.

Tell people you love

About this growing obsession

And then look desperately at their faces

And gush so profusely

And bleed so openly

They cannot help but hold you up and say

‘You can have anything you want.’

Five.

Make a god out of a man

And allow yourself to grow so devout

You fear to lose

Something you never had.

Rinse yourself of skepticism

And bask instead in the addictive delusion

Of hope and longing.

Wait for the invisible wall

That stands in the way of inevitable destiny

To crumble from the force of your will.

Tell yourself it is only a matter of time.

Six.

In the paradise you made

You have become too soft

And too blind

To see the floor beneath you give way.

You don’t notice you are falling

Until you are too close to the ground.

And you realise

Upon your thunderous crash

That the one you wanted

Was never looking at you

But right past you.

Seven.

You recognise, far too slowly,

That perhaps the ocean of your making,

The vast sea of possibility

Was smaller than your dreams.

What was a sea is now a lake,

What was a lake is now a puddle.

What was a puddle is now a drop,

And a drop was never there at all.

Eight.

Swallow your pride

And choke on your ego.

Hold your chest as it collapses

And don’t ever cry

Because your mother told you

Frivolous things are unworthy

Of a clever girl’s tears.

Nine.

You feel a snake

Scaly and writhing

Wrapped around your neck

Tightening like a noose.

But there is no snake.

Only your own hand,

Mimicking a serpent.

Ten.

You hate yourself

Because your imagination

Has always been

Far too unruly

For your own good.

You hate yourself

Because you always covet

What you cannot have

And don’t deserve.

All you want

Is to never want anything again.

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How to Fix Your Own Heart in 1 Difficult Step

One.

Write melodramatic poetry

And try to trap uncomfortable feelings

In cages made of words.

Look back at the ruins

Of that half-formed world,

The one you built on false assumptions

And chemical urges,

And try not to feel ashamed.

You were wrong, but you were brave.

And all those incapacitated dreams,

And crippled desires,

Were not wasted.

For your eyes were cloudy

But now they are clear,

Like a freshwater stream

Trickling slowly but surely

From mountains of experience.

And maybe the next world you make

Will be built on foundations strong enough

To carry more than just you.