heartbreak

battered

by youth's follies

my heart

never broke

though I drowned

myself

in tears

and scribbled

page upon

page

of

insipid

poetry

of love

and

loss.

i only thought it was broken.

i knew

the difference

when i felt

it crack

and shatter

in my chest,

the pain

physical,

excruciating,

the day

you told me

you wanted

to die,

my sweet

lover of life

whose

joie de vivre

had

long ago

silenced

my own lifelong

melancholy.

only then was my heart truly broken.