Perhaps poems about heartbreak aren’t the first things that come to mind, but surprisingly, they can help.
If you’ve had your heart torn apart by love (and who hasn’t?), reading heartbreak poems can validate your pain in a way that booze and binge-watching just can’t touch.
The eloquent wordsmithery of these poets remind you that the pain of lost love is universal.
It hurts beyond measure for a while, maybe a long while.
But like all wounds, a broken heart will heal over time.
19 Heartbreak Poems to Soothe Your Pain
Still enduring the despair of having your heart smashed into a million pieces? We understand.
Nothing is so exquisitely painful as the end of a love affair. Go on and wallow in your grief for a while – it’s expected. You’ll know the day when you’re ready to move on.
But for now, read through our collection of lost love poems to validate your anguish – or perhaps to take the first step toward healing.
I know what my heart is like Since your love died: It is like a hollow ledge Holding a little pool Left there by the tide, A little tepid pool, Drying inward from the edge.
He would not stay for me, and who can wonder? He would not stay for me to stand and gaze. I shook his hand, and tore my heart in sunder, And went with half my life about my ways.
3. Love Elegy in the Chinese Garden, with Koi, by Nathan McClain
Near the entrance, a patch of tall grass. Near the tall grass, long-stemmed plants; each bending an ear-shaped cone to the pond’s surface. If you looked closely, you could make out silvery koi swishing toward the clouded pond’s edge where a boy tugs at his mother’s shirt for a quarter. To buy fish feed. And watching that boy, as he knelt down to let the koi kiss his palms, I missed what it was to be so dumb as those koi. I like to think they’re pure, that that’s why even after the boy’s palms were empty, after he had nothing else to give, they still kissed his hands. Because who hasn’t done that— loved so intently even after everything has gone? Loved something that has washed its hands of you? I like to think I’m different now, that I’m enlightened somehow, but who am I kidding? I know I’m like those koi, still, with their popping mouths, that would kiss those hands again if given the chance. So dumb.
There is no magic any more, We meet as other people do, You work no miracle for me Nor I for you. You were the wind and I the sea – There is no splendor any more, I have grown listless as the pool Beside the shore. But though the pool is safe from storm And from the tide has found surcease, It grows more bitter than the sea, For all its peace.
Never give all the heart, for love Will hardly seem worth thinking of To passionate women if it seem Certain, and they never dream That it fades out from kiss to kiss; For everything that’s lovely is But a brief, dreamy, kind delight. O never give the heart outright, For they, for all smooth lips can say, Have given their hearts up to the play. And who could play it well enough If deaf and dumb and blind with love? He that made this knows all the cost, For he gave all his heart and lost.
This was once a love poem, before its haunches thickened, its breath grew short, before it found itself sitting, perplexed and a little embarrassed, on the fender of a parked car, while many people passed by without turning their heads. It remembers itself dressing as if for a great engagement. It remembers choosing these shoes, this scarf or tie. Once, it drank beer for breakfast, drifted its feet in a river side by side with the feet of another. Once it pretended shyness, then grew truly shy, dropping its head so the hair would fall forward, so the eyes would not be seen. It spoke with passion of history, of art. It was lovely then, this poem.
8. I Tried to Stop Loving You, by Courtney Peppernell, Pillow Talks
I tried to stop loving you so I built walls around my heart and found other names to whisper in the night. But you carved yourself into my veins whether you meant to or not. And sometimes I wonder if you remember the way we looked at each other or maybe you just forgot.
Yesterday the fields were only grey with scattered snow, And now the longest grass-leaves hardly emerge; Yet her deep footsteps mark the snow, and go On towards the pines at the hills’ white verge. I cannot see her, since the mist’s white scarf Obscures the dark wood and the dull orange sky; But she’s waiting, I know, impatient and cold, half Sobs struggling into her frosty sigh. Why does she come so promptly, when she must know That she’s only the nearer to the inevitable farewell; The hill is steep, on the snow my steps are slow— Why does she come, when she knows what I have to tell?
I’m tired of dreaming. I’m through with trying. Tired of living, yet scared of dying. Maybe things are good for you, but look at all that I’ve been through. Look at all the pain I’ve won. I bet you think that it’s been fun. You never thought I’d turn away. You never believed you’d see this day. Look again because here I go, leaving behind all I know. Changing it all as I must do. Not daring to stop and think things through. Wanting to run as fast as I can, not stopping until I understand. Like why did I let things get this way? Why didn’t I leave yesterday? How are things going to be since there is no more you and me?
11. I Lost It, by Carrie Berry
You took my fears away And made them true. You took my love away And ripped my heart out, too. You took my laughter away, And my happiness, too, And let all my sadness And tears get through. The rest of me that was left Also left with you. I lost myself When I lost you.
12. Drowning, by Madison A. Wakfield
I’m drowning. I look around at everyone going past and suddenly I can’t breathe. It looks so easy for them, Going about and laughing, Having the time of their lives. Why is it so easy for them? I’m drowning. But then, Then I think of you. I think about our times spent. I remember walking together, I remember nights together, I remember movies together, I remember how it all started. I’m drowning. But then I think of you. I begin to wonder, Am I really drowning? Not when I have you. Then I realize, I’m losing you, And these pleasant memories? They turn to bitter reminders of once was. So maybe, Maybe I am drowning. Because without you, I can’t breathe.
13. Feeling Out Of Touch, Maybe I Feel Too Much, by Kaileigh Rabidoux
Hard to breathe Weird to touch Acting normal Think too much Trying hard To figure out Moving onward Engulfed in doubt Don’t look back Too much pain And in fact Nothing to gain Filled with knots Wasted time A penny for my thoughts I deserved a dime Who’s to say what’s true I never said I was right Guess I never knew It’s not worth the fight Thinking about before Don’t know who I was Could have closed the door And never been an “us” Said you would stay Promised you could Chose to walk away I knew you would Everything was fine Said we’d never part Knew it was a line But gave you my heart I’ll take the blame I’ve always known I played your game You lost alone I know you know There’s more to give You were a stepping stone I have a life to live Hard to love Weird to trust Acting typical Think it was lust
Wait, for now. Distrust everything if you have to. But trust the hours. Haven’t they carried you everywhere, up to now? Personal events will become interesting again. Hair will become interesting. Pain will become interesting. Buds that open out of season will become interesting. Second-hand gloves will become lovely again; their memories are what give them the need for other hands. The desolation of lovers is the same: that enormous emptiness carved out of such tiny beings as we are asks to be filled; the need for the new love is faithfulness to the old. Wait. Don’t go too early. You’re tired. But everyone’s tired. But no one is tired enough. Only wait a little and listen: music of hair, music of pain, music of looms weaving our loves again. Be there to hear it, it will be the only time, most of all to hear your whole existence, rehearsed by the sorrows, play itself into total exhaustion.
What was it I was going to say? Slipped away probably because it needn’t be said. At that edge almost not knowing but second guessing the gain, loss, or effect of an otherwise hesitant remark. Slant of light on a brass box. The way a passing thought knots the heart. There’s nothing, nothing to say.
The fist clenched round my heart loosens a little, and I gasp brightness; but it tightens again. When have I ever not loved the pain of love? But this has moved past love to mania. This has the strong clench of the madman, this is gripping the ledge of unreason, before plunging howling into the abyss. Hold hard then, heart. This way at least you live.
And if, my friend, you’d have it end, There’s naught to hear or tell. But need you try to black my eye In wishing me farewell? Though I admit an edgèd wit In woe is warranted, May I be frank? . . . Such words as “——” Are better left unsaid. There’s rosemary for you and me; But is it usual, dear, To hire a man, and fill a van By way of souvenir?
is like being burned up in a twelfth-floor elevator. Or drowned in a flipped SUV. It’s like waking with scalpels arrayed on my chest. Like being banished to 1983. Having a fight with you is never, ever less horrid: that whisper that says you never loved me— my heart a stalled engine out the little square window. Your eyes a white-capped black sea.
I said I shall tell the tale of my heart as best as I can; Caught in the storm of my tears, with a bleeding heart, I failed to do that! I tried to relate to event in broken, muted words; The cup of my thoughts was so fragile, that I fell into pieces like shattered glass. Many ships were wrecked in this storm; What is my little helpless boat in comparison? The waves destroyed my ship, neither good remained nor bad; Free from myself, I tied my body to a raft. Now, I am neither up nor down – no this is not a fair description; I am up on a wave one instant, and down under another the next. I am not aware of my existence, I know only this: When I am, I am not, and when I am not, I am!
Did you find yourself in any of these emotional deep broken heart poems? At the very least, you’ll recognize you aren’t alone in your suffering. And you likely already know that the only way to mend a broken heart is with time.
Even so, we hope these heartache poems have soothed your soul just a bit and provided a life rope to get you through the day.
