The Hardest Part of Breaking Up...Is Getting Back Your Stuff

To steal a line from MTV's fictional boy band 2Ge+her, "The hardest part of breaking up, is getting back your stuff"...and, I would add, your sanity. Breakups are crazy for so many reasons. When they happen, they totally turn your world upside down and leave you with sadness, questions, a meteor-sized hole where your partner used to be. Even if you're the one who ended it, it's most definitely no walk in the park.

If you are lucky enough to survive those first post breakup months, though, you find out that there are some perks to breaking up. For one, you get the freedom to focus on new things that you love (especially the things that your boyfriend or girlfriend hated). It's also fertile ground for a budding poet. My breakup was many months ago, but I've finally gotten enough distance from it to be able to write some pretty introspective pieces about our time together and my thoughts on our breakup. I've included one of these below and will share a few more breakup-related poems throughout the coming weeks. Let me know what you think.

ps...actual names have been replaced with singular pronouns, to protect the innocent (and not so innocent)

Sorry
BY Susan Baba

We communicate in I’m sorrys.
Sorry for taking so long to text you back,
I wasn’t sure how to say it.
Sorry for never calling you back,
I didn’t think you would want to hear my voice.
Even across a crowded club,
My eyes say I’m sorry as I flirt with another.
And as we get a feel for what this “friends” thing is supposed to be,
We’re filled with I’m sorrys
For all that we choose to leave unsaid.
As you might have guessed, we were lovers once
And there is so much to be sorry for
Much too much to be sorry for
But I don’t regret ever loving him.
I don’t.