Heartbreak, the kind where your heart somersaults from one beat into the next,
viciously until it explodes into a confetti of bruises
Heartbreak, the kind where your heart sinks so deeply it touches your stomach
and you feel your insides undoing themselves, gently cracking, splitting
Stomach becomes heart and heart becomes stomach and you cannot tell the difference
Is stomach revolting or heart attacking?

It all feels the same, it all feels like pain, it all burns. Remarkably
It feels like your heart wants to run outside of your body
Your whole body feels suppressed, too small to contain all of you and stand
Unable to hold devastation and you in the same breath
Hold breath and breathe in the same breath
You pause, beg your body for peace

The floor beneath your feet is pulled away like a rug, you float
You move without movement, move while standing still
You are present but away, somewhere and here, drowning and thirsting
Seated but running
Is it you or the room doing the spinning? You do not know

Every wall becomes too apparent, confining, unbearable
You run outside for air and even then, there all the air in space is not enough to fill your lungs
You learn what “shattering” means with every fibre of your being, no pain ever readied you for this, this kind of thievery
Shattering has claimed it all

Heartbreak, the kind that seems insurmountable, unforgettable, the kind you know you will survive only because this is not the first time your heart has been broken
And you have survived hitherto, haven’t you? Even if barely, even when barely

How many heartbreaks does it take to break your heart?

How much living will you do before meeting the fibre that makes the cloth you were cut from?
You were woven with the threads of resilience
How many resurrections do you need in order to understand that women like you do not die?
No heartbreak can bind your spirit, despite how much it breaks you