He Was Spring

I guess I am putting poetry here now.

If you follow me on Instagram, you may have seen my stories from yesterday when I shared (for the first time, publicly) about a heartbreak that nearly destroyed me last year.

It’s a very long story with a lot of layers and nuance that I’m not sure when or if I’ll describe in more detail. The very basic outline is I was in a relationship with a man from March to December last year. I loved him. I trusted him. I had no reason to think he’d ever hurt me, even if he wasn’t meant to hold my heart forever. I believed he would at least hand it back to me with kindness if he felt he couldn’t keep it anymore.

Instead, just as I began to ease my anxious watch of my heart in his hands, finally believing he would be careful enough- he abruptly dropped it and walked away, not once looking back. He ghosted me for days, downplayed and gaslit my concern when I finally connected with him, then broke up with me over a 3 minute phone call. I mailed him the Christmas gifts I thoughtfully curated and made for him. Told him to donate the coffee maker I kept there for the weekends we spent together. I never heard from him again.

I cut myself over and over trying to pick up the shattered pieces of my obliterated heart. I couldn’t put it back together because I was bleeding out. I physically felt it fall apart. I was in so much deep pain, and completely blindsided, left there in the grip of a monster I ran from all my life- Abandonment. Total abandonment with zero warning.

I could no longer white-knuckle my way through my traumas. The very thing my anxiety fought so hard to protect me from happened anyway.

I checked myself into psychiatric care a few days after- when I ran out of pills that let me sleep through the pain.

After I graduated two months of partial hospitalization and intensive outpatient therapy, I wrote this over the first half of this year. It was the beginning of allowing myself to process a loss and a love that I will likely spend many years trying to make sense of.

He was spring 

He was spring 

He was butterflies, flitting and distracting 

He was a tender blade sprouting from a compost of old pain 

He was shallow roots but eager leaves curling around me, whispering promises of blooms

He was fresh and new
He was spring 

He was summer 

He was lemonade, just sweet enough to make me crave what he would taste like if I could somehow pour more sugar into him 

He was hot and cool and hot again, pushing and pulling me through waves of indifference that crashed down on me and turned into a tide that sometimes felt like hope 

He was sweaty nights and stormy days 
He was summer 

He was autumn 

He was a cozy blanket and a soft place to land

He was arms around my waist and warm kisses on my face, my chilled hands stuffed in the back pockets of his jeans at Oktoberfest where I finally let myself fall completely, stomping my doubts purposely like crunching leaves under my feet 

He was comfort foods and worn in jackets, suddenly familiar 
He was autumn 

He was winter 

He was the cold snap I didn’t plan for 

He was the sharp sting of an icy tumble, confusion and a spinning head as I tried to regain my balance

He was lonely & long nights, their darkness unrelenting

He was a flurry, evaporated as soon as it settled onto warm, pulsing skin  
He was winter

_

He is spring