all at once

By Sanya Afsar

a poem of aching candor narrating the varied, implicit forms of heartbreak.

sitting in my designated seat
on the floor of my candlelit bathroom
i think about the tragedies of heartbreak

i do not mean the romantic date nights
turned sour breakups
the young puppy love couples
growing up and apart

i don’t mean the drunken infidelities
turned shouting competitions
jealousy and duplicity
attracting the end of a long-term relationship

heartbreak is the feeling of isolation
amongst a group of close friends
the continuous fake laughter
i fail to recognize my voice in

or the feeling of disgust
when finding a photo of myself
that i didn’t manipulate
to make everything look exactly proportional

it’s the feeling of dread
when a teacher hands back a paper
upside down and folded in half
their look of fake encouragement
piercing into my bones

and the feeling of shame
when i watch my grades
turn from blue to green to yellow
the borderline goods
mocking me
and spitting in my face

heartbreak is feeling the drop in my chest
when her tone changes
and her discourse dies down
and the door slams on her way out

it’s the feeling of light
at the end of a tunnel
combined with the refusal to nudge
from the glue of the darkness
right at the start

and the feeling of despondency
every weekend and weeknight
for lack of diversion by school
and lack of distraction by noise

heartbreak is when you seek comfort
in all the wrong places

and when you force yourself
to get out of bed everyday
for something as desolate
as needing to hide away
in something as meaningless
as numbers on a paper

it’s when you look in the mirror
and fail to connect with the person staring back at you
judgment radiating off her body and soul
repulsion sinking deep into your mind and being

it’s when your blankets and pillows
are your safest dwellings
your only friends
and your only home

heartbreak is too much
and not enough
it is an understatement
and an exaggeration
all at once

Girls Write Now On the Other Side of Everything: The 2023 Anthology

Do you know what it’s like to communicate with your family across a salty ocean’s divide? Do you want the sun and moon to enter your home with stories written in embers? Do you seek voices that will punctuate the darkness? Welcome to the other side of everything. It’s the other side of silence, the other side of childhood, the other side of hate, the other side of indifference, it’s the other side of sides, where the binary breaks down. It’s a new paradigm, a destination, a different perspective, a mindset, a state of openness, the space between the endless folds in your forehead, hopes for tomorrow, and reflections on the past. This anthology of diverse voices is an everything bagel of literary genres and love songs, secrets whispered in the dark of night, conversations held with ancestors under the sea. 

READ ON THE OTHER SIDE

VISIT ANTHOLOGY LIBRARY

Performance

Process

Near the end of 2021, the 92nd Street Y offered a creative nonfiction writing residency at my high school, and I was absolutely enthralled. Each week, we were given a different prompt following an open conversation. One week, the main lesson for our session was the word “heartbreak.” We opened up by creating individualized lists of unconventional forms of heartbreak, mine reaching the bottom of my paper. Later, we were asked to utilize that list and write a piece in any creative medium of our choice. I scribbled down a paragraph similar to the first two stanzas of this poem, but left it at that. In a moment of vulnerability two weeks later, coincidentally nearing the Y’s online student anthology submission deadline, I revisited the list and turned it into this work of poetry that I’m ever so proud of. In this poem, I wanted to encapsulate a few of the pains that sit heavy on my teenage heart, away from the stereotypical idea of a young girl’s heartaches being nothing far from silly crushes and summer flings gone wrong. The fatal whispers of mental illness, impending futures, academics, and things as such spoken about in the poem all hold an enormous weight on my shoulders, and I wanted to write something I know people will relate to, will take refuge in.