Well, you’re a girl so you will sit in your room, hold it in, and pray for him.

 

 

You learnt from your mother. You learned to swallow fire, digest it in a few tears and get up quickly so that no one would ever know. You are better than your mother, you hope, so you make sure he never knows that you cared, that you still care. Because he said he hopes you can still be friends and what is friendship if not sacrifice? What is love if not pain and what is girlhood if not this: knowing what it is to be loved and hated by a man in the same breath; confusing a man’s heart for your mother’s womb; absorbing a man’s trauma, giving him a piece of your heart in return, and still trying to appear light and feminine for the next time.

 

 

Well, you’re a girl so you will cry, and you will write and you will  grieve and you will hurt and it will pass.

 

 

You’ll rationalise: I know he’s hurt, I’ll give him time. I know how his childhood affected him, I’ll give him time.

 

 

You’ll call your girlfriend, ask her if she’s free for dinner, but you’ll cancel at the last minute because you haven’t felt beautiful since the last time he looked at you.

 

 

You’ll revisit, reanalyse, rethink, relive, remember every moment you spent together. You’ll find yourself unable to find closure. You’ll find yourself unable to find truth in any of it. And you’ll weep. You’ll watch movies and hate the lovers and you’ll sleep. You’ll go for walks until you can no longer stand the silence. You’ll make a playlist with his initial as the title and you’ll listen until you can no longer stand to think of him. You’ll check every day that he hasn’t blocked you yet and maybe rationalise again: he’ll come to his senses, give him time.

 

 

You’ll draft texts to send him. Overzealous, angry, sad, desperate, ravenous texts that luckily the image of your disappointed friends keeps in your notes app.

 

 

You’ll pray. Ask God to help you find peace, to stop caring about him. You’ll ask God why this always happens to you and then you will blame God and then you will blame yourself. Ask what it was about you that was missing, ask why you are always too much for people, ask God to fix you.

 

 

And you’ll rationalise: trust yourself, trust your choice in people, in friends, trust that he is a good person, he will come to his senses. And you’ll try to be friends, tell yourself he’s worth being friends with, until you realise that a friend would have been honest with you, a friend would have been considerate of your feelings. And you’ll sob and eat ice cream and listen to his favourite song. You will listen to your mother speak of how life is like a moving train. People come on and off, that’s just the way it goes. You’ll ask her what you are meant to do when someone gets off too early. You weren’t ready: how do you bring them back? You can’t, she’ll say. It’ll pass, she’ll say. And you’ll cry, and she’ll hold you.

 

 

You’ll find a new man during dark, anonymous hours, maybe in the back of a dingy club and let him hold you because you haven’t felt beautiful in so long. And you’ll rush out crying, pull out your phone, draft another text, maybe even send it under the guise of drunkenness. Hope he’ll find pity in you and come pick you up. You’ll beg him then, you’ll apologise for things you never did because you weren’t ready and now, you are desperate and ravenous. But he won’t respond.

 

 

And you will sit in your bed for days. It will come in waves. It will come in thoughts that he would have treated you better if you had just said something different, if you had just been a little softer, if you had just been more open with him. It will come in thoughts that this is all his fault, that he is a cruel person who is incapable of love, that you must have just missed the red flags. It will come in reminders of the times when he was kind and gentle and loving, and a nagging feeling that you wanted it to be him so badly. You had hoped it would be him so badly. On the worst days you’ll consider hurting yourself, hope he’ll find pity in you. That maybe the thought of permanently losing you will make him care. But he’s already lost you. You’ll rationalise: he doesn’t care. Maybe he never cared.

 

 

And you’ll scroll, and you’ll see that he’s liked another girl’s Instagram post and you’ll bawl while staring at yourself in the mirror. You will ask yourself whether this is happening because you aren’t pretty enough, and if you weren’t pretty enough then, how are you meant to be pretty enough now? How are you meant to be pretty enough while carrying this grief? And you’ll read through your texts one last time, say goodbye, maybe draft him a love letter you’ll never send, but you hope that when you die and it’s discovered, he’ll hate himself for what he’s done to you.

 

 

And when the guilt finally hits him, he’ll ask to talk, and you’ll lie to him: say ‘I don’t want to talk to you right now’, say ‘I don’t want to talk to you ever’ when what you mean is: I have too many questions. I have too much anger. You want to say: how could you? Why would you? Why won’t you apologise? Why couldn’t you love me? You want to say: this has left me fragile, this has left me frail, it has left me full of hate and I’m afraid I would not be able to listen right now. You want to say: this has left me cruel, this has left me ravenous. That is, this has left me shivering, it has left me wandering through the days with a kind of fevered thirst, searching for traces of warmth, of touch, of tenderness, of humanity, of the possibility of kindness in a man, in every glance and every breath. Lie to him, lie to yourself, lie to your friends, lie to your mother. Lie, lie, lie. Lie down and cry until your breath runs short. Lie down and cry until it all goes away.

 

 

You’ll block him. And you’ll cry in a public toilet. Not because you’re hurt, but because you’re embarrassed. Because you hate that you gave him so much of yourself. You’ll feel empty because there is not much of you left.

 

 

Maybe you will google ‘how to heal’ or ‘how to survive a breakup’. Maybe you will find God, find meditation, find journaling, find affirmations. You will find that there is no way to survive a breakup. You’re a girl so there is no other option: you must sit in this for a while, reject it for a while, feel angry at it, feel fragile and tender and starved enough to settle for whatever man you come across next.

 

 

Well, I hope you find Mari Evans: “if you have had your midnights and they have drenched your barren guts with tears, I sing you sunrise and love and someone to touch”. I hope you know that I sing you a love which is stronger than this, kinder than this. A man who asks you to show him the shape that fire has taken inside you and worships it. He will beg you to never swallow fire for him and he will never hate you in any breath. I sing you sunrise and love which heals you, which protects you. And you’re a girl so find a way to believe in this, like you always have.

 

 

Because what is girlhood if not this: hope. Do your hair, makeup, nails and go out and feel pretty then come home and cry in your shower and scrub at your scalp until you stop thinking about him. Kiss someone else, scream, run, cry to your friends, cry to your therapist, write about fire and tears and girlhood; hate yourself, really hate yourself, and then love yourself in the same breath. Remind yourself that to give is to be human, that to feel strongly for people and express that is never embarrassing. Remind yourself that you are lovely. You are full of love, you have an outstanding capacity for love. Remind yourself that you are not alone.

 

 

And one day, you’ll pick up a book, or listen to a song, or see a friend, or watch a movie and you’ll smile. Maybe giggle. And you’ll find love again. Not in another man, not for a while, but in life, in yourself, in your perseverance. You will listen to your best friend tell you not to close yourself off: you cannot experience the good if you don’t feel the bad. And when you finally find another man, he’ll find you weary, untrusting. If he’s a good man he’ll keep trying, and you’ll let your guard down, beg him, plead with him not to hurt you. Tell him you’re not sure there will be any of you left if he is not gentle with you. And maybe that too will pass, maybe you are not meant for love, but you will learn. You will hurt and cry and be reminded of your own humanity, award yourself grace, forgive everyone, forgive God.

 

 

And when you’re done, repeat, repeat, repeat. Because, well, you’re a girl.∎

 

 

Words by Lina Osman. Image Courtesy of Lina Osman.