How do you let go, what was never yours? Like deep one-sided love. Like those deep yearning of joy and tenderness, you felt on winter mornings. Which only you felt. When you walked through that hotel he once visited with his beloved, you wished you were her. Yet, the pain stings you. Like a bee. Like a dead flesh. You try to rationalize. Every night your brain says, you will end it, all. Yet every morning the love blooms, that becomes suffocating by afternoon and almost kills you at night. You know his routine, his food habit and the color of the shirt he will wear today. Red or Green, you always know. But you are never a part of it. Just an audience. And how it hurts to be one. You read everything he did. You make his tastes yours and again he chooses someone else. You again try to be her. Your life seems to be a battle of becoming a beloved to someone who does not recognize your presence. Each day his absence is the only presence, you live, fight and cry with. You tell yourself how strong you are. How you don’t care. How he is not good enough for you. But each time he chooses someone else, you tell yourself how you were never good enough.

Then one day, you stop. You breathe in. You breathe out. You gasp for breath. Something is cracking. That crack you refused to acknowledge for years. It keeps cracking. And you find that you are broken open. You are scared. You cry. You break down to bits. You think you won’t be whole again. But you do. The broken heart has leaves you with gems. You pick up one. Then two. Then three. You hold them together and mourn for some time. Every death needs rituals. Your mourning is a ritual. It brings you the closure. And that is how you are left with gems, the world craves for. And you become wise. You only show them to the ones who matter. But wherever you walk, you shine. That is the gift of a broken heart. The gift of mourning. The gift of letting go.

You shine.

First published as a Facebook post in 2018.

If my work has made an impact on you, you can buy me a coffee here. This will help me to keep writing and healing more. Thank you.