A Broken Person's Guide to Break-Ups

The relationship hadn’t been working for a long time, but you still held onto it like a baby to their mother’s hair. And like a baby, you were too stubborn to accept this guy wasn’t good for you. Your girlfriends told you to cut all ties with this guy, but he was injecting you with that sweet venom. You were mainly a babysitter when he got drunk or high and foolishly thought you could help him with his drug addiction. El vato wasn’t gonna quit shit. You always fought, never saw eye to eye, and Tony was using again even though he promised he wasn’t. You break down hard every night thinking it’ll get better. And you did end it...well...Tony did. Cut you off cold turkey. You shut completely down. Missed all your classes that week, even a final, and didn’t eat or talk. You looked like a Magdalena and just spent all your day listening to the songs he dedicated to you and remembering all the cursi mierda he’d tell you. You didn’t tell your family because “es buen muchacho” and also because you thought you’d get back together, hoping God went on vacation so Satan could answer your prayers instead. You wish this was the first time, but no, this was the...hold up you lost count...time. 

Another week passes and you beat yourself up, blaming yourself for not being good enough or even enough. You hit him up asking what the fuck his problem was to which he replied “I thought it was better this way”. Hasta el gusto se dio. Then it all clicks together. Everything your girlfriends told you. TONY wasn’t good enough for YOU. You tell him have a nice life and that you wish him the best, but in your head you think go to hell hijo de puta. You and the girls celebrate with dinner that day. A brindis to your freedom as the burning liquid hits your dry throat. 

The next day you break that cochinito, the one next to the now meaningless letter you’ll burn later, and buy yourself a whole bunch of make up. All that clothes building up dust in hopes that he’d come see you was now ready to be taken out and worn. You build confidence again and start to flirt with guys or attempt to flirt cause you’ve been out of the game for too long. You hit up that one guy that asked you out a year ago when you told him you couldn’t but he’s got someone now, great. You stop hiding in that spot you like sitting at and put yourself in an area you know people will see you. When you go out, you drown in the sea of couples that mock you, and you think gross but really you’re imagining getting your face sucked too. You see Tony’s Snap stories and find he’s out partying and wonder if you ever mattered. Those nights you just bury yourself under your blankets and stuff your face with buckets of Ben & Jerry's Chunky Monkey and towers of greasy pizza, crying yourself to the volgery of romance movies. You lose contact with all civilization, again, and decide to crawl back into your troll hole, only leaving it to follow your routine. You don’t really get over it. You lose yourself and build walls. 

A few months pass and you decide to try it again. You know that thing people call...dating? There’s that cute guy in your class that keeps asking you out and he seems normal enough. So, you put on the make up and the clothes and pray for a miracle. Not all men are the same, yet that’s what you said about your ex.