Coping Mechanism

I am human.
I am fragile, I am emotional, I am vulnerable.

I can be hurt and scarred and discouraged, depending on your tactics.
I may open up to you in love, and then you can cut deeper.
If you let me get used to you, I will dream of you for months.

If you change, I will sense the brokenness of whatever was there, and I will mourn.
My memories will haunt me, comforting me and causing me anxiety.

After a while, though
Once I have spent long enough crying, and long enough bleeding,
I will sit up from the floor.

And all of the words that turned from warm to cutting when I found out they were empty,
They will shout loud from within my mind.
And the pain in my heart will reach a deafening roar, before it transforms
And in one split second
The world turns upside down.

There is a pause. A space in which there is nothing to fill
We're just hanging from a thread, you and I, in nothing.

Time slowly restarts
The thread snaps, has snapped long ago
And you're gone, lost far in the wrinkles and folds of what once was.
Your words start to whisper, again, but I thread a needle with them
And I begin to sew songs to show and tell to the world

I will tell them of the love before the loss, and how wonderful it was
The feeling of waking up in the morning, excited to live
The feeling of sharing in someone, wholeheartedly, loving who they were and are and will be
The feeling of aching to fuel their dream, to satisfy their heart
And the feeling of telling this person all of these things through the contact of eyes and skin.

I will tell them of the loss after the love, and how it was like the earth was torn from the sun
How I thought of you,
How I thought I needed you,
How I thought my life would be empty since you had left.
That is a logical thought, for someone who thought you were her future.
I will tell them to notice the past tense
And notice that I don't need you
That my life is so full it is bursting, and there is no room for you any longer
Simply because you don't want to be in it.

You have hurt me and broken me, left me feeling empty, but it was all an illusion.
All of that pain and sorrow is now inconsequential, but you have left me with one permanent gem.

Despite the months of feeling terrible, and despite the fact that our happiness was short-lived
Despite the anger and hate that I felt so shortly ago, and so shortly in itself
Despite the letters you said you'd send and never did,
And despite my last desperate attempts at salvaging this...

I have learned one thing.
And though I could have learned it by watching Moulin Rouge, I learned it with my soul.
I learned it with every little tiny piece of my heart, and I learned it with hours and weeks
I learned it with every emotion I ever felt towards you.
I learned it with happiness, excitement, nervousness, rage, jealousy, melancholy, and peace
I learned this.

"The greatest thing you'll ever learn is just to love, and be loved in return."

For that is all that matters.