My Letter to Juliet

This article is based on the movie “Dear Juliet,” and it is for everyone who has ever had their heart broken by someone who did not deserve to have their heart. For me, Juliet is the universe, but for you, Juliet is whoever or whatever entity you wish her to be. Know that you are not alone in your feelings, and the pain of heartbreak and despair does get better in due time. 

Dear Juliet,

Does it ever get better? Does this hurt ever end? 

Essentially, I have this theory that girls who like to read are ultimately doomed in relationships. I blame Shakespeare mostly. You probably do, too. Girls like us long for a Byronic hero, but they lose out on the hero part, only left with a villain.

I remember the day my world turned black. The last thing I remember was staring at his ceiling, lying flat on my back, watching a bright white light, watching his guilty eyes, and then, nothing. It’s hard to explain going from something to nothingness. Nevertheless, it is all too tangible, too visceral, too real.

I continuously type and erase. Opening up my messages and clicking on his name. I type out what I want to say and how my heart feels, but then it is deleted. He doesn’t care about what I have to say. It’s a waste of my breath. 

Still, I need your help — some advice to make this ache dull. I wait for him in still, small moments, and I crave him in rushes of passion, only to be disappointed when he solely appears in my dreams.

But Juliet, am I insane for lamenting over a man who bruised me so deeply? Is my broken heart a product of falling in love or only falling for an illusion of it? I thought that he and I were falling in love, but we were not, only I was. Or so I thought.

Was it love, Juliet? Let me explain.

It wasn’t like touching a fire. It was more like standing in a cloud of smoke, realizing only after the smoke had dissipated that my lungs had blackened. In the midst of it all, I found myself grasping and groveling for glimpses of light, for a pillow of tenderness in place of the harsh emptiness I endlessly felt.

Sometimes, I think maybe he tried to love me, he just didn’t know how. But then I catch her, the empath, and I am forced to remind myself that even if he didn’t know how, he still would have tried. No excuses. No “because of my ex.” I needed him to see me, Juliet. I needed him to reach for me, try for me. He couldn’t.

He neglected and abused the heart that, in my naivety, was so freely gifted to him. My body buckled under the force of his intoxicated hands, but my heart ached with the emptiness of his sober indifference.

Yet, there I was, still, standing parallel to the fire, sure that I would never be burned; trying to make love out of pain, torture, nothing. 

Perhaps you would call me stupid, Juliet. I would have to agree with you. What is left of me is ash with a dim, single ember. He took a vibrant, bold and fiery lover and snuffed her out until she was nothing but a wisp of smoke reveling in the darkness of an abandoned light. 

What now, Juliet? 

These questions that I ask myself in the still of night in the darkness that consistently surrounds me seem unanswerable and undeterminable. I don’t know who I am anymore. I feel destroyed.

The girl who gave all of herself to someone who gave her nothing, she is lifeless. How do I find new life?

My head knows what my heart strives to deny me of. Only pain and anger came from the time I spent with him. Still, I am bonded to him; perhaps because of the trauma I am desperately trying to heal from.

Often, I can’t believe that I let him use me the way he did. I thought I was smarter, better than I used to be, but I was the same tender-hearted girl who saw the good in him. I wish sometimes, Juliet, that I was heartless, detached and cold, but I can’t be, no matter how hard I try.

I thought the way I was used by him was unbelievable, but then I think that it was all my fault. Because even after everything he put me through, I still love him the same way. This feels like my fallacy for meeting him, for letting him into my life. 

I was way too hurt from the beginning; so was he. I just used my hurt and turned it into kindness. I thought about all the ways I wished I had been treated by people before, and I did everything I could to make him feel the love I was neglected of. I was hurting so badly. I am still hurting now more than ever.

Grief is love with no place to go. You know this. When relationships end, there is mourning. The joy and vibrancy of life vanishes, but why? Why am I mourning something that only caused me pain. Where can I hide my love so it never gets mistreated again? 

I feel lost, Juliet. What do I do?