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.