'The Hell With Love: Poems to Mend a Broken Heart', by Mary D Esselman & Elizabeth Ash Velez.

you fit into me

you fit into me

like a hook into an eye

a fish hook

an open eye

--Margaret Atwood

I think hope is just what you need. Hope and anger.

They say that depression is anger turned inwards. I say, here is your opportunity to turn it outwards.

My story: Four years ago, the love of my life, my best friend since I was in high school, broke my heart out of the blue. It betrayed and shocked me the way you have been betrayed and shocked. It truly is the cruelest thing, to have such a decision kept from you, to be given no choice, no time, no chance to change, no opportunity to work things out. Your ex is a dreadful coward, make no mistake.

We had just moved overseas, and were living together in a small and extremely foreign town, the only Westerners and practically the only English speakers. We had both just signed one-year contracts. I stuck it out in that town. It was the hardest thing I have ever done. In some ways, it was the making of me (I was 27). In others, it broke me utterly. I was an abysmally miserable wreck of a person. I felt like nothing -- a fragile, empty shell.

I gave myself that year to grieve. I fucking wallowed in it. I drove my mother mad with tearfilled phone conversations. I drove my friends mad with my self-pity and inconsolability. After the year was up, I took the money I had saved, got the fuck out of there, went travelling by myself, moved somewhere else where they spoke English, where I knew people already. I saw a therapist, often. I took heaps of ecstasy and went dancing every weekend. I had one-night-stands. I cacooned myself in my friends. I worked so I could spent everything I earned visiting places in Europe. I spent far too much money on clothes and my hair.

From nothing, I had the chance to make myself something again. I got to choose which bits about myself I loved, and which bits I hated and wanted to change. And I changed them.

When someone completely wipes you out, you get to choose the way you put yourself back together. In many ways, it is a great gift (though thinking of it that way doesn't come till later).

After that first year of misery, I gradually started to feel better. I think I would've felt better sooner if I had done two things, which I will recommend to you:

- get out of there as soon as you can, for as long as you can

- get really fucking mad (you don't have to stay mad forever, just for a few months, a year, as long as it takes)

I tried to stay friends with my ex, and for all sorts of reasons it was a big mistake. Cut off contact. If you can, leave the goddamn country for a while. You can make friends with him later, in a couple of years, when it hurts less, when you've rediscovered yourself and your hope and maybe even new love.

Four years ago, life as I knew it ended and I wanted to die. In four months, I'm marrying the person who really truly is the love of my life. It will get better, much better, better than you can ever dream of. Promise.

I was dumped about 6 weeks ago by my boyfriend who I dated for 1.5 years. I thought he was the one and I love him still very very much. I didn't know it was coming at all. I only see him on the weekends due to our work schedule. One weekend we were perfectly fine and the following weekend he didn't call me and then on that Sunday he called me up and said that we should take a break. Then on that Friday, he said that he doesn't want to be with me anymore and he thinks we are incompatible. I was so upset and devastated because I didn't know he felt this way. He said he was feeling this way for a long time but he never mentioned it to me. I am still hurt and it is almost 2 months. I am not sure how I am going to get over him because I still to this day want to be with him. So now all my weekends are so emotional for me becuase for the past year and a half I spent every weekend with him. So finding things to do was hard. I now read books, go out with my single girlfriends ( I try to stay away from my girlfriends with boyfriends because I don't want to hear how happy their relationships are going) and then I will go shopping. Its not making me feel any better but it helps me from crying all weekend. Hopefully one day I will be completely over him but I know that it will take time. Just find something else to keep you occupied and you will suddenly stop thinking about him. I will pray for you because I know how painful it is.

I was dumped about 6 weeks ago by my boyfriend who I dated for 1.5 years. I thought he was the one and I love him still very very much. I didn't know it was coming at all. I only see him on the weekends due to our work schedule. One weekend we were perfectly find and the following weekend he didn't call me and then on Sunday he called me up and said he need a break. Then the following Friday, he said that he doesn't want to be with me anymore and he thinks we are incompatible. I was so upset and devastated because I didn't know he felt this way. He said he was feeling this way for a long time but he never mentioned it to me. I am still hurt and it almost 2 months. I am not sure how I am going to get over him because I still to this day still want to be with him. So now all my weekends are so emotional for me becuase for the past year and a half I spent with him. So finding things to do was hard. I know read books, go out with my single girlfriends ( I try to stay away from my girlfriends with boyfriends because I don't want to hear how happy their relationships are going) and then I will go shopping. Its not making me feel any better but it helps me from crying all weekend. Hopefully one day I will be completely over him but I know that it will be time. Just find something else to keep you occupied and you will suddenly stop thinking about him. I will pray for you because I know how painful it is.