Excerpts From A Book I'll Never Write

Pocket-sized misery

Like love, heartbreak is in the little things. Grand gestures are only for the show, and sometimes, most of the times, the ache is just a soft hollow. Gentle in the way you won't even realize it's slowly eating your insides, inches by inches.

Your heart will break like the first time you witnessed your favorite vanilla ice cream fall to the ground and melt itself away under the sun. Your tongue hasn't even tasted the sweetness it offers, only your hands remember the coldness it left.

Tears might not always be there and when it does, it might not come in a way you would expect. Maybe you have just gotten out of your house in the morning, ready to go to work, or maybe you're just driving on the side of the road and then the red light hits and you remember it's been two years since he last sent you a 'Happy Birthday' text.

The pang, the pang in your chest would probably started like a needle, like a prick. But not the one that would go away with a flick. It grows, one prick becomes ten, becomes twenty, becomes fifty, becomes a hundred, and then a thousand, and you're not even in an acupuncture clinic. Your father did, or that is what he said every time he's out on the weekend before you eventually find the text message on his phone from a number that is not your mother's sending one and then two and then probably five strings of heart emojis. (Damn those emojis, you'd think).

Losing sleep is not an option. You and the night made a pact in which you will not shut your eyes tight until her shift is done and the moon has to switch place with the sun. Adjusting to this is hard for all the skeletons inside your closet and the monsters under your bed comes alive as the darkness arise, thus you have to lay with both eyes open listening to those demons whispering sweet nothings on your ear (you will never be enough, you are a failure, he will never love you back, everyone hates you, you are a disappointment).

But it gets better. I promise you it gets better. You will taste other dessert sweeter than ice cream, less cold and does not melt so fast, so quickly. You will get used with the needle like your mother does after years of stitching back the holes of all the blankets torn down. It might all be patches by now but blanket is still blanket, the one you reach when the night is getting too cold to face alone. And the night, the night gets nicer as you learn how to turn your demons' scream into a lullaby that you can fall asleep to.

So sleep, little darling, you deserve it. Even though tomorrow is your birthday and it's going three years without his calls or text message but sleep, little darling, it will be okay. You are more than your misery, and soon enough, you will find your remedy.