She told me she needed a poem. She told me she'd just gone through a really bad breakup and she needed a poem. See, she allowed herself to love him, and with that sweet pea and violet scented love, she inadvertently  donned some rose-colored glasses that clouded her vision and only allowed her to see the good in him and the bad in herself. You see, occasionally he'd spend a day with her, tell her he loved her, tell funny jokes, make her laugh, and really focus his attention on her, and she'd remember what it was that made her fall in the first place. On other days, he was distant, when she asked if he was happy he was hesitant, when she tried to show affection he was resistant, to try to get him to open up was like grabbing hold of his arm and trying to twist it, yet she didn't want to give up. She asked him if there was somebody else (the answer was no), she asked him if he would be happier with somebody else (the answer was no). So she told herself that everything was fine, she tried to silence all of the voices in her mind, and one day when they finally quieted, she received the biggest surprise of her life as the boy she loved told her he was leaving her because there was, indeed, somebody else. I should have told her I wasn't sure I could write this poem, I should have told her to listen to Alessia Cara, watch spoken word on YouTube, and drink a bit of Sprite if she was able to hold anything down, I should have told her, but she told me she needed a poem. See, she'd been riding with him for years. If he needed money, she gave it. A place to stay, she had it. A support system, she was it. And it was only a matter of time before he came crawling back because he realized that you can have a girl that's gonna play around and lay around, but there ain't nothing like a girl that's gonna stay around. She was loyal like a pet that had been treated right, constant like a clock that always told the correct time, so like a boomerang, he came banging back, like the snap of a rubberband, he came slinging back, like a crocodile in search of a human feast, he came crawling right back. She did not listen to the advice of her friends because love, love was worth it all in the end, love was all she needed to survive, love was the oxygen that had kept her alive, love was the rays that caused the sun to shine, but she couldn't see that this love had made her blind. She took him back because she'd seen all the movies and read all the books about giving second chances, she forgave him and promised they'd forget and look past it, she really did love him though none of her friends could understand it, she did. She did all she could do, all she could but trying to please him was like trying to feed a lava monster unable to digest food, like like trying to teach a formless blob to tie a shoe, like trying to walk to Chicago from Kathmandu, and he just kept on disappointing her because he wanted to have his cake and eat it, too. He wanted Diana, but he also wanted you. He wanted to know that he'd always have something soft to land on, something to come back to. She sat there in stunned stupor as he called her names she had to research on the Internet, she didn't say much about his insults as she tried to explain how she needed this to change, to stop, she listened as he blamed her for everything that had ever gone wrong in his life, and she believed him, she felt her heart break as he spelled out all of the ways she was nothing and no good and nobody, she felt a wretched pain in her abdomen as she guilted herself into thinking he was right, she told herself she should have tried harder, done more, asked for less, been less maintenance, she told herself she shouldn't have made anything an issue, but she sat there, tears welling but never spilling as he told her he should have chosen Diana, as he accused her of being a selfish dung-throwing, high-horse rider, as he told her he wished he'd never met her. That's what killed her. He told her he wished he had never met her, and she could only think she would never regret the day she met him.She'd been dragged through the dirt, kicked in the gut, and had nothing in her hands to show for months and months of pain, confusion, disappointment, and forgiveness. And it made her sick to her stomach to think that someone she loved so much, or that anyone at all would wish they hadn't met her, he said he wished he had never met her and she thought anything he said would be okay, she thought she'd be fine if he left or if he stayed, he told her if he had stayed with the girl he'd cheated with, he would be happy today, he said if he'd stayed with Diana, his depression would have gone away. Her best friend told her not to believe him, her best friend told her that she was better off without him, her best friend told her never to date him, never to take him back, to never allow a guy to treat her like crap.. but I guess she didn't really think she worth all of that. She told me she needed a poem. She told me she needed a poem. See, I wrote this poem for my Uber driver, but I think I wrote this poem for myself. I think I'm talking to myself. I want to tell us that it's okay to be sad because when someone hurts you, it's outrageous to expect yourself to be happy right away, I want to tell us that even if we want to follow our hearts and answer that "What if" question (what if he's different, what if it's destiny), we should still take into consideration what our best friends have to say, I want to tell us to never curse our mistakes because as long as we learned something, we are further along than we ever have been, I want to tell us that maybe we don't know what love is, what it means to be loved, or what love looks like, but we know what love is not, and if we keep loving and forgiving, in the end, we will see that love is the force that treats us right, and we will never have to question its existence. I want to tell us to never blame ourselves for someone's permanent unhappiness because happiness is a self-grown crop that we alone must harvest. I want to tell us to stop reading his texts because then we will be able to keep down our breakfast, I want to tell us to listen to Rihanna's Kiss It Better and Alessia Cara's Stars, Stone, and River of Tears, I want to tell her that I'm so glad that I met her and that she is a wonderful person, I want to tell her to cry and sing and laugh, to dance and do the things that make her happy, I want to tell her she is beautiful. I want to tell you that if you ever need a poem, I'm here.