This Is How I Turned Heartbreak Into Something Beautiful

I’ve been imagining arms wrapped around my willowy figure for hours now, trying to figure out where we went wrong, where I went wrong. I can still smell the scent of your cologne clinging to my pillowcase, engulfing me like a tidal wave. I can still see your smile lines etched onto your skin, only visible when you were filled with happiness.

It’s ridiculous to think that I could be your forever girl, the plain Jane, the brown eyes, brown hair girl from the library, who’d much rather be reading than at a party.

I can’t believe I thought I stood a chance to be the girl you chose out of the billions in the world.

It was magical loving you, until you destroyed me.

What isn’t magical is wanting to scream every time I hear your name.

Echoes of empty promises and forgotten plans play on a loop in my head. Pieces of you are littered around my apartment – your favorite coffee mug, button down shirts hidden behind couches, your smell wafting through every room.

I hate you, but I can’t live without you.

I would not trade a second we had together for anything in the world. Even if the lump in my throat grows into the size of a boulder, suffocating me into the depths of my heart, I would still relive every moment we shared. Even when I have to stifle back tears because every part of me aches without you, I would never give up the times we shared together.

This is how we turn our pain into something beautiful.

I remember the midnight runs on the beach, the cool sand beneath my toes and your fingers intertwined with mine.

I can’t sleep anymore because a part of me is empty next to me on my queen bed. My heart quivers every time I see a couple because all I can see is you and me.

Every time I turn the corner down my block I think I see you waving and my heart swells. It reminds me of the drunken nights we spent drinking ten-dollar wine by the fire, my lips red and plump, my chin raw from your scruff.

I forget how to love because you broke me so badly. You left me shaking on the cold marble floor, wondering why I loved you so much because all I can feel is pain and it’s like my veins aren’t working because I don’t feel any blood – or anything really – in my heart anymore. I run my hands through my hair, engulfed by my own misery, hoping and praying for the day where my distant memories of us can become a reality again and my breathing won’t slow down and I can’t remember who I am or what I’ll do without you because you were my everything…

You are my everything.

All the words I should’ve said but were left lingering like old perfume start with I and end with you.

All this talk about writing being therapeutic and desperate and heartbroken teenagers looking for solace in someone else’s pain is all a lie. Because I know you expected this to be some uplifting story about how I overcame it and how I’m some independent woman who doesn’t need no man, but the truth is every time my pen touches the paper the ink turns to blood and it feels like someone is driving a dagger into my chest.

This is how we turn our pain into something beautiful because pain means we felt something. Pain means that something was so great that it hurts so badly to lose. It means that if we are so lucky to have felt a love like this, something so rare in the spectrum of the universe, we did something right.

You were, and always will be, my best friend and I will love you for an eternity. I have no one left to kiss until my lips want to fall off and no one to laugh with until I am deliriously happy.

Even if my heart feels like glass now and I forget how to smile without you, I wouldn’t trade any of it for the world.