You are allowed to break
You are allowed to shatter, to explode,
To burst, to collapse, to splinter, to crumble,
Any variation of the word you'd like,
But whatever you do
Do not remain whole,
Life is not a competition
Where whoever gets out with the fewest scars wins,
So break

You are allowed to lock yourself in your room
To eat an entire tub of ice cream
To scream as loud as you can
To stop answering phone calls
To cry until you are nothing more than a pile of salt,
You are allowed to feel,
I will not think any less of you

You are allowed to fall in love
To stay up all night writing sappy love poems
To dance around your room like a preteen
To blush at the thought of them
To spend hours trying to paint the exact shade of their eyes,
To be naive enough to believe
That this one isn't like all the others,
You are allowed to be wrong about them
And you are allowed to be right,
You are allowed to let yourself be loved in return

But you are not allowed to give up,
People are counting on you,
You have a job to do, you are here for a reason,
You cannot give up now,
I know your bones feel so heavy sometimes
I know you've been having trouble sleeping
I know every day feels like a war you didn't sign up for,
But you are so needed, and so loved,
You are not a funeral pyre
So don’t you dare try to burn yourself to the ground,
Don't you dare try to leave me here alone again.