When You Learn

When you learn that true heartache

Is not just a metaphor of emotionality

But rather an actual pain

Shooting through your heart.

And radiating through your soul.

A malfunctioning body

Breaking down even more.

You wonder how a person

Who is already so broken

Can hurt so much.

 

When you learn the meaning of emptiness.

The TRUE meaning of emptiness.

You lay in the dark and the darkness envelops you.

You sit and be silent and the silence overtakes you.

An emptiness that that you can feel as deep as the pit of your stomach

And as superficially as the nerves in your skin.

 

When you learn the meaning of sadness.

A sadness that stays with you no matter what.

That holds you in its grip.

Strangles you. Suffocates you.

Making every breath a struggle.

An impossibility.

 

When you learn the meaning of loss.

The people who once said they loved you

Who once said they cared

Who were once there

Are there no longer.

Because it is too hard for them to see you hurt.

Or because they didn’t care in the first place.

 

And after learning about heartache, emptiness, sadness, and loss

You wonder about what you didn’t learn.

And if that can possibly matter more.

 

You didn’t learn about happiness, fulfillment, vitality.

You didn’t learn about who you are.

And why you are even alive in the first place.

 

So you live on

In an endless eternity.

Waiting for the end to come.

And you learn that it can never come soon enough.