Table of Contents – Section 4: The Breaking Point
(italicized titles are prose reflections or vignettes)
- 03:02 AM
- Love as an Illusion
- Light and Shadow
- A Painting in a Mirror
- The Weight of Pain and Betrayal
- Tears That Feed the Dark
- Windows and Cackling Crows
- Drowning in the Loss
- The Depth Where Eyes Cease to See
- The Breath Between Dreams
- A Breath Below
- It Takes Two
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→Section 1: The Spark & The Pull
→Section 2: Falling In, Falling Hard
→Section 3: The Struggle & The Tension
→Section 5: Grief & Longing
→Section 6: Acceptance & Transformation
Section 4: The Breaking Point
Vignette: 03:02 AM:
Time I gave you, I should give it to myself.
Things I gave you, I should buy something nice for myself.
But this time, it’s too much.
I should Uber myself somewhere, make me feel valuable instead of Ubering to hear about your ex.
I should focus on myself, not you.
I know it all, but I still keep giving it to you.
Actually, I want nothing back.
You don’t need to give me sweet words.
You don’t need to give me a kiss.
I don’t like it, but do what you want.
Go to sleep. I think I’ve said everything.
Love as an Illusion
Some loves arrive like a vision—so vivid, so consuming, you believe in them without question. They pull you in, promise depth, promise warmth, promise forever.
But what happens when the image fades? When the light shifts and reveals nothing beneath?
Was it love, or only the illusion of it? Was it real, or did I only want it to be?
Maybe the answer doesn’t matter. Maybe some illusions are meant to be lived, even if only for a time.
And maybe, seeing through it changes nothing at all.
Light and Shadow
(poem about love and lies)
Eyes out to see within.
Your light, the only way in.
Love blinded by light.
Darkness gives sight.
Feelings, they never lie—
unless all you’ve ever known is a lie.
A Painting in a Mirror
(poem about deception and illusions)
A painting in a mirror.
Reflections come nearer.
Colorful descriptions,
images and obscure decisions.
Visions become clearer,
seeing without feeling.
There’s nothing to touch.
Flashes of light and squinty eyes.
Out of sight.
It felt close,
close enough to touch.
Abstract substance, deceived by light—
a hologram of wishes,
a burning glow in a room void of substance.
Things seem empty, hollow, and dull.
A mistake of the eyes,
a trick of the mind.
You were my shining light,
a blinding light.
I’ve lost my sight—
a beautiful lie which captured my eyes.
The Weight of Pain and Betrayal
Some wounds do not bleed. They settle. They weigh. They change the way you stand, the way you carry yourself, the way you look at love.
I once believed love was a shelter, something that could not harm. I thought pain came from the outside—from loss, from time, from things beyond our control.
But I learned that love can cut deeper than absence. That words, unspoken or untrue, can hollow you out in ways no departure ever could.
I do not hate her. No, hatred is too easy. It would give me something to hold onto, something to blame. But there is no comfort in blame. Only weight. Only the ache of what was given, what was trusted, and what was never meant to be kept.
Maybe love is not a promise, but a gamble. Maybe some of us are meant to lose.
(And maybe, even knowing this, I would have still placed my bet.)
Tears That Feed the Dark
(poem about deception and illusions)
Killer eyes.
Dark thoughts set on intent.
Visions of horror.
Soothing sounds of destruction.
Painful wishes.
Comfort among the dead.
Tears never shed.
Some lives aren’t meant to dread—
All lies.
Moments I despise.
Moments that reveal the wounds I try to hide.
I am a monster after tears.
Thoughts I make disappear,
reappear,
disappear again—
until new memories take their place.
But the monster lives on, buried deep.
Reemerging if I weep.
Windows and Cackling Crows
(poem about broken love and bitterness)
Do you see me as I see you?
I’m clear as day and delicate as a window.
Do you hear my sounds when I’m around?
Or am I muffled like unpleasant sounds?
If I could, I would fly around town and look around,
just to make sure you’re safe.
But I don’t think you feel the same.
I think I’m a nuisance to you, like a crow that won’t go,
or grow its own wings.
Dependent on love, that no longer sings.
Instead, it just stings.
At other times it stinks like when crows rummage trash,
looking for scraps.
Relics from the past.
Cast aside, I will remain.
Or until I break the pain and shatter what remains.
My wish – not hold you in vain.
Only then will I fly away.
Would you sing for me if our view was broken?
Or would you celebrate the feast with sounds of cackles and caws like the crows do?
Maybe it doesn’t matter anymore.
Cause now. I can see right through you.
Broken windows and shards of glass, now lay below on concrete and grass.
Hopefully, no one walks and cuts their feet.
Your end. A bittersweet.
Victory.
Drowning in the Loss
(Quebec City. Late evening. The river is dark, moving slow, indifferent to the world above. The city hums in the distance, lights flickering in the cold, but here—by the water—it is quiet, endless. It feels like sinking.)
There are moments when love does not die all at once. It unravels in pieces, slipping between fingers that are too slow to grasp it, dissolving into the spaces where it once lived.
I had been holding on—too tightly, maybe. I had believed in time, in patience, in the gravity that pulled us together. But love does not always obey gravity. Sometimes, it drifts. Sometimes, it vanishes.
And sometimes, it drowns.
I stood by the water, watching the river move. It did not hesitate. It did not look back. I thought about what it would feel like to step forward—to let the cold pull me under, to fall until there was nothing but the weight of it pressing in.
I had been here before. Not here, not this river, but this feeling—gasping for something that was no longer there, reaching for someone who had already let go.
I closed my eyes, and she was still there. In the breath between dreams. In the depths where eyes cease to see. In the way love lingers, even when it is gone.
Maybe love is not lost. Maybe it just lives somewhere we can no longer reach.
(I stepped back from the edge. The river kept moving. And so did I.)
The Depth Where Eyes Cease to See
(poem about despair and heartbreak)
You were the moment of hope when
my soul was hopeless,
the torment that broke me and left
me soulless.
I chose hell for love—a lonesome
promise,
and fought for air in a bottomless
ocean.
If I could breathe the ruthless seas,
I’d travel deep for love’s eternity.
I sank and drank from Poseidon’s world,
and kissed a mermaid’s way.
I swam deeper, knowing my fate.
And when I reached the
crushing depths,
eyes vanished from the world.
The Breath Between Dreams
(poem about dreams and lost love)
Gasping for air while deeply dreaming.
Eyes open, but nothing is seen—
only a vague memory of something recent.
How quickly we forget when we awaken or sleep—
one existence replaced by another.
It’s like two sides of the same coin.
One side lives in the dream world,
where memories form.
The other dwells in the waking world,
where dreams fight to exist.
Have you ever fallen in love in a dream,
only to awaken and mourn
the loss of a love you’ve just met?
It didn’t feel like a moment.
It felt like an eternity.
Once in a while,
a dream comes true.
And like a dream,
a moment meets its end.
One must accept truth and keep dreaming,
or risk losing the beauty waiting to be seen—
waiting for your love.
If I had given up
when love was stripped from my pleading hands,
I would have never felt the tension of her hands,
gently squeezing,
seeping me into her warmth—
a release that lulled me to sleep,
as her eyes pierced into mine,
whispering goodbye.
A moment that took my breath away,
as tensions spread,
and desire ended.
In my head lies a palace of memories,
ones I yearn to relive again—
a passion I plead to keep,
yet slowly fades
into mornings where I gasp for air.
I will continue dreaming,
knowing I once felt her love—
something I may never relive again.
My soul found a home
in the mornings I felt her breath.
The gasps began
when our love met its end.
A Breath Below
(poem about devotion and despair)
You are the fresh air
breathed in a dark and murky sea.
You are a dream of another world
when ours is cursed and hurt.
Prisoners we are, shackled to this earth.
I am your pillow for your rest,
my chest, your protective nest.
In the stillness of our embrace,
together, we can sink to the abyss,
a place where mermaids and gods exist.
It Takes Two
(poem about one-sided love)
You had something special.
But they didn’t.
It takes two.
Remember that.