Last October, I felt a pain that was, I thought, indescribable. I had broken up with the boy that I had dated for years, that I was sure I would marry. We both thought we were each other’s soulmate, and that finally the universe made sense since we were brought together. I had loved him more than anything in the entire world and had poured myself completely into our relationship, and the loss of that, however necessary, was devastating. We remained friends after, but the pain was still horrible. Then, this summer, we had a falling out, and it has now been almost two months since we’ve spoken. He had been my best friend for so many years, the person I always turned to for everything. We’d gone from talking every single day to complete silence. He was the only person who knew every part of me, all my lightness and darkness. He was my everything. To lose both my boyfriend and my best friend in less than a year has been one of the hardest things I’ve ever experienced.
The only thing (other than therapy) that has really helped me through this has, surprisingly, been poetry.
I never enjoyed reading poetry, and I certainly wouldn’t consider myself a poet. I thought poetry was pretentious and dull. I’ve always found reading novels to be my source of healing. However, with the pain of this past year, I find that I can’t always get into longer pieces. If I’m in the middle of my emotional rollercoaster, I need an emotional outlet that’s quick and to the point. One that feels like an immediate blanket of understanding. That’s where poetry comes in.
Right after the breakup in October, I’d wandered into a Barnes and Noble. There was no reason in particular, I was just looking for a distraction that wasn’t sitting in the dark watching Moulin Rouge! for the twelfth time. I was a general wreck. I walked the aisles, mostly just numb and not thinking, and somehow ended up in the poetry section. Normally I avoided that section like the plague. But something had brought me there; fate, divine intervention, coincidence, whatever it was. I picked up a copy of Pillow Thoughts by Courtney Peppernell on a whim and scanned the first few pages. The words, the drawings, something about it drew me in, and I went to the cash register to buy it before returning to my dorm room and promptly sitting down to read it.
I hadn’t expected much of it. Like I said, I wasn’t a fan of poetry, with the exception of Rupi Kaur’s milk and honey which I had read a year prior. I thought reading through Pillow Thoughts was just going to be something to occupy my mind for a little while before I set it aside, never to think about or touch it again. But what I found were words of understanding. I found someone who felt a similar pain, and was able to convey it in words that I did not possess at the time. Someone had put words to what I was feeling. There were expressions of pain, which allowed for a cathartic release, but also words of encouragement and healing. Reminders that the pain, no matter how bad, would eventually fade away. I sat on my dorm room floor, reading through it not once, not twice, but three times, a mix of tears and smiles on my face. For the first time since the breakup, I felt relief and a sense of peace.
I spent that entire night typing out those poems that spoke to me, printing them out, and hanging them on my wall. I wanted to surround myself with these words. Each poem felt like a friend. Some validated my emotions, others helped me pick myself up. This poetry reading and hanging became a frenzy. In the span of a week, I had bought about seven or eight other books of poetry to comb through. With each poem that touched me, my wall of poetry grew. Soon enough I had a giant collage of poetry surrounding my bed. And, I found, that the hole in my heart was a little smaller.
Eventually I ran out of poetry, though. As someone on a budget, I couldn’t just keep going out and buying more books. So I kept rereading the ones I had. Until one night, when I was already in bed and got hit with a wave of emotion. I simply grabbed my phone, opened the notes app, and typed out a poem of my own. The wave of calm that washed over me after releasing my emotion onto a page was overwhelming. That calm led to me being able to roll over and fall asleep instead of tossing and turning like I usually did.
Slowly, writing out my emotions in the form of poetry became my norm. Most of them are short and unedited. I allow myself to just let words flow out of me, allow the hurt to leave my body and go onto a page, or document, instead. It feels so much better than just feeling constricted by my emotions. They’re unedited, raw, and just for me. It’s liberating.
Once he stopped talking to me this summer, all my old emotions were brought back and heightened even more. I’ve broken out the poetry books once again. My dorm walls are slowly turning into another poetry collage. My phone and Google Docs are full of new poems expressing my anger, hurt, sadness, and confusion. And while I’m certainly still in pain, the poetry lessens it.
At the end of the day, poetry can’t bring my best friend back to me. It can’t reverse the clock like I want. It can’t completely heal me. I know this. The flame inside me has dimmed, and I’m still trying to coax it back to full brightness. It’s going to take time. But if poetry can help fuel that fire, then I’ll take it.
Poetry Book Suggestions:
milk and honey by Rupi Kaur
the sun and her flowers by Rupi Kaur
The Universe of Us by Lang Leav
soft thorns by Bridgett Devoue
Pillow Thoughts by Courtney Peppernell
the princess saves herself in this one by Amanda Lovelace
eighteen years by Madisen Kuhn
Dirty Pretty Things by Michael Faudet
in the absence of the sun by Emily Curtis