Surviving Heartbreak

Thin Line Between Hope And Heartbreak

Lately, I've been walking a line so thin,
like the edge of a fading star
between hope and heartbreak.
I'm terrified to let either win,
because no matter who does,
the losing side will hurt
just as much as I remember—
like a burn from a flame
I was never supposed to hold.

I never hoped for us before—
not because I didn't want it,
but because it didn't matter.
We were together,
and then we weren't.
Like clouds that drift apart
no matter how tightly the wind pulls them.

I've lived through hope,
and the heartbreak that followed,
and I'm still unsure of myself.
What's right? What's wrong?
I'm confused all the time.
I don't even know what I want anymore,
like trying to grasp moonlight in my hands
and watching it slip away.

When you left,
I buried you—
and the version of me you loved
went into the ground with you.
I mourned you, cried for you,
starved myself for you,
and then cried some more.
I let myself grieve until there was nothing left,
until the stars I wished on burned out
and left me in the dark.

And now, one conversation—
just one,
at 2 a.m. on a night shift—
has me spiraling again,
falling into this pit of unsureness
I thought I'd escaped.

It's unfair.
I never stopped loving you,
but I learned to live without you.
I built a life worth living,
a life without your shadow.

So why now?
Why do you still have this hold over me
when I buried you so long ago?
Every gift tucked away in a box,
every picture hidden from view.
I stopped driving past your house,
stopped tracing the constellations
you taught me to love.

And yet, that hope—
that relentless, unyielding hope—
the one I spent a year and a half
shoveling dirt over,
has awakened again.
It flickers like starlight,
impossibly far yet painfully bright.

But this time,
I can't let my mind play tricks on me.
Not again.
I won't let it.
I've built something good,
something steady and strong,
and one conversation changes nothing.

I have to keep telling myself that.
I have to.
Because if I forget, even once,
I'm scared to death
of what will happen next.

—MistakenGenius