i forget that it’ll be okay

i mistake heartbreak for contentedness. i lose myself in the i'm sorry's and i love you's and the i miss you's. and i never realized how much it quite mattered, never realized the weight of the words until one day i woke up in a world where you were no longer in it.

you strung along affections in broken english, kissed me another life, called me your own with blessings of virtue. and in between the smell of incense, the trips to the store around the corner, the falling of nickels and dimes, i find you tucked in between. yawg entertwined with the memories of forever yawg the mosaics in falling tears yawg the beating of this broken heart. you're there every time in every shadow and reflection, in every unsaid word and passing silhouette, and how can that be possible when you're no longer here?

and there's that saying time heals all wounds. but how come in these half-skipped beats the bandaid you once stuck on my elbow has become undone? is love even deserved to be felt when you know the answer at the end is heartbreak and pain? wouldn't it be better to never be hurt again? and it feels that way when i'm crying my last goodbye on that last day. i'm not weeping for just the ones i lost, no, i'm weeping for the ones going to be lost. because love and pain are the same edge on a sword.

you left me grasping for you, left us grasping for that missing piece in the hole of family. i wasn't ready to say goodbye and yet the word crept to my lips and fell like glass. in those fragments, i cut my fingers, and i've been collecting cuts ever since.

and yet even with the pain coursing through my veins and bleeding from my cuts, i know it's going to be alright. i know it is the inevitable outcome, i know that the bandaid that came undone was replaced by another. i know that the missing piece was never went missing, it simply became less visible. i know that when i grasp for you, your hand is the one i find holding. sometimes pain just amplifies love.

the answer is, yes love is worth feeling. love is worth the heartbreak and pain and ache and losing of oneself. it is worth the tribulations and tears and relearning how to move on. because for every day i've loved you i knew this day would come, and yet that never stopped me before. you're worth the cuts on my fingers and the tears on my pillow. because you loved me and i loved you and even if you're no longer here, i never stopped loving you.

that's how i know it'll be okay.