50+ Sad Breakup Poems To Get Over A Heartbreak

Image: Shutterstock

Heartbreaks are part and parcel of any relationship, and everybody copes with them differently. Poems about heartbreak can be your strength in such a situation. They encourage and motivate you to move past the melancholy and nostalgia that may occupy your mind and help you to look at the brighter side.

A relationship may end, but the memories stay, and the heartache and loneliness may not be easy to deal with. Even when you move on, these memories may haunt you. But although the consequences of heartbreak can be devastating, coming out of this misery is possible.

We have a list of heartbreak poems to let you know that you are not alone and induce hope for a better future relationship.

50+ Breakup Poems To Heal Your Heartbreak

People often turn to poetry to express complicated emotions about love, joy, heartbreak, and loss. Through the rhythm of words, poets have been able to convey the pain, grief, denial, and ultimately, the healing that follows a breakup. These breakup poems will help you find comfort and support when you are all alone.

Love Breakup Poems

You break up when you know they are not loyal or break the promise of togetherness. Love breakup poems convey the complex feelings of heartbreak associated with the end of a relationship. These poems may offer you solace when you need it the most.

1. Finding new strength

It still feels like a nightmare so bad,
I can’t believe I’m living the situation every lover dreads,
My tears keep flowing like drops of rain
But to my utter surprise, tear by tear goes away my pain
I find peace and a newfound liberation
No longer bounded by love and intimidation.

— Ritika Shah

2. After Love

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.

— Sara Teasdale

3. Untitled

neither of us is happy
but neither of us wants to leave
so we keep breaking one another
and calling it love

— Rupi Kaur

4. This Was Once a Love Poem

Image: Shutterstock

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.
Under its chin, no fold of skin softened.
Behind the knees, no pad of yellow fat.

What it knew in the morning it still believed at nightfall.
An unconjured confidence lifted its eyebrows, its cheeks.
The longing has not diminished.
Still it understands. It is time to consider a cat,
the cultivation of African violets or flowering cactus.
Yes, it decides:
Many miniature cacti, in blue and red painted pots.
When it finds itself disquieted
by the pure and unfamiliar silence of its new life,
it will touch them—one, then another—
with a single finger outstretched like a tiny flame.

— Jane Hirschfeld

5. Break Up

love comes as a garment
sewn together from the deep
depths of creation,

and when seasons
rend it apart,
after it served us
with days of joy and warmth
we break down like a bombed wall
and crumble as we fall,

if i could un-speak the words
i have spoken,
or go back
to change the street i have taken,
so that we never met,

i try to grasp back with faith
clumsy hands
that spring forward
to catch you as you leave,

though i watch you go
i stand rooted to the spot
on legs seeking to walk by your side
but then you took your flight
on wings i never knew you had,

i can not shout
i can not speak,
for words rush to my eyes
and raise a storm
with rain drops upon my face,

but then sunlight through my tears
creates a rainbow amidst my fears.

— Antreka Tladi

6. Oxymoronic Love

Hatred is the new love. Rage is right. Touch
is touch. The collars of the coat, turned down,
point up. The corners of our hearts are smoothed
with rough. Our glass breaks slick, our teeth
rip soft. The mollusk of me, shell-less.
If the future once was, the past predicted
us. The street gives off rhythm. The sun
gives off dusk. When we walk, we
pour backward. When we have nothing,
it’s enough. The hunger leaves us satisfied,
the fullness leaves us wrung. The sum of all
its parts is whole, the reap of it has roots, not
took or plucked. Far apart, we move inside
our clothes: open is old, young is closed. The fangs
we used to bare are milk teeth grown from gums.
The fire we used to be scathed by numbs. We
run on the track of our consumption, done.
We’ve been ice when liquid is our natural state.
We’ve worn our husks, we’ve clenched our fists.
We scold and punish, scrape, pay a price.
We dole out in slanders what has no weight.
We pay in cringing for the moments. We open
injuries in one another. We lacerate places
that flex like knuckles, crack and grow. We are
sipping from the water’s thirst. We were lost
at first. From the finish, begun. We undergo
the pain the other knows. We are cartoon yards
where dogs dig for lost bones. Esoteric,
we are full of holes. That need to be filled.
That need to be dug. We are under-loved.
We are under-known. Give to us and we are
downcast and uplifted and sift like water
and sand like stone. We are greedy, we are
gone. We are helpless, we are prone. Drain us
or fill us and we’ll ache a vast installment.
Let us empty. Let us alone. Madness is our happiness. Sadness is our home.

— Jennifer Militello

7. All Good Things Come To An End

All good things come to an end,
Even the gifts that God sends,

Like her, the angel He sent from above
who was the one person I truly loved.

She changed everything and made my life worthwhile.
She was the only one who could make me smile.

She really doesn’t understand how much she means.
I’ll never be as happy as I’ve been.

She was my heart and my soul,
She filled me with joy and made me whole.

She was my world, my greatest treasure.
I loved her so much that it couldn’t be measured.

I remember every kiss and touch.
All our memories I miss so much.

I wish we could go back in time,
When I was hers and she was mine.

I’d always protect her and let nothing harm her.
How ironic it was though that she was my armor.

She always made me feel so secure.
No matter what went wrong, she always had a cure.

With her, I felt absolutely no fear,
But now I’m scared of anything that comes near.

She healed me and put me back together,
So I held on to her; she was my tether.

— Greg Thung

8. Love I’m Done With You

You ever wake up with your footie PJs warming
your neck like a noose? Ever upchuck
after a home-cooked meal? Or notice
how the blood on the bottoms of your feet
just won’t seem to go away? Love, it used to be
you could retire your toothbrush for like two or three days and still
I’d push my downy face into your neck. Used to be
I hung on your every word. (Sing! you’d say: and I was a bird.
Freedom! you’d say: and I never really knew what that meant,
but liked the way it rang like a rusty bell.) Used to be. But now
I can tell you your breath stinks and you’re full of shit.
You have more lies about yourself than bodies
beneath your bed. Rooting
for the underdog. Team player. Hook,
line and sinker. Love, you helped design the brick
that built the walls around the castle
in the basement of which is a vault
inside of which is another vault
inside of which . . . you get my point. Your tongue
is made of honey but flicks like a snake’s. Voice
like a bird but everyone’s ears are bleeding.
From the inside your house shines
and shines, but from outside you can see
it’s built from bones. From out here it looks
like a graveyard, and the garden’s
all ash. And besides,
your breath stinks. We’re through.

— Ross Gay

9. I Tried So Hard

I tried so hard.
I tried my best.
I gave you my all,
and now there’s nothing left.

You stole my heart,
then tore it in two.
Now I’m falling apart,
and don’t know what to do.

Divided by decisions,
burned by the fire.
Confused by your words.
Tempted by desire.

I’m living in the present.
My mind is on the past.
Not knowing what I’ll lose.
Not knowing what will last.

Blinded by fear.
Drowning in doubt.
Struggling to be free.
Looking for a way out.

— Whitney Barton

10. You Thought

You thought I’d flipped the switch and I hadn’t
You thought I’d left the window open
And I wouldn’t
You thought I’d turn the dial up
But I didn’t
You thought I’d ring the sun the super
But I shouldn’t
You thought I’d unlock the beehive
But I wouldn’t
You thought I’d sing the dirge
But I couldn’t
You thought I’d cook the rabbit
And I hadn’t
You thought I’d come back that day
And I didn’t
You thought I’d tend the flowers
But I couldn’t
You thought I’d turn the lock
But I hadn’t
You thought I’d open the door
See you
But I couldn’t
You thought I’d lay down
But I couldn’t
It kills me still
I couldn’t
I couldn’t

— Dorothea Lasky

11. What’s Next?

I lie awake tonight,
Wishing of things I can change.
I try to convince myself,
But it’s all so strange.

Is it me,
Or is it you?
Do I try,
Or are we through?

So long we’ve shared
Just to walk away.
But so much hurt
To want to stay.

Why do we do this,
Try to hurt the other more,
Only to watch one
Walk right out the door?

I love you so much,
Yet I push you to the point of breaking,
But why do you play with my heart
And never stop taking?

Is this the end
Or a new beginning?
Only one can guide me
When my head is spinning.

Don’t push,
Don’t try,
Don’t stress,
Don’t cry.

That is what plays
Over in my head
As I try to close my eyes
And just go to bed.

— Amanda

12. Our Many Never Endings

You entered the bedroom and fell to your knees.
I wait the rest of my life to hear you say, I made a mistake.

Inside my chest, a mangle.
Inside yours, a deflating balloon.

You took the vacuum cleaner, the ironing board, the dish rack
and left me some lint, an iron to scorch shirts, one chipped plate.

I would like to say at least we perfected
entrances and exits, like professional stage actors

honing their craft, but even that’s a fantasy.
Mostly on TV the lions ate the hyenas

but sometimes the hyenas
formed a posse, and tore a lion up.

Occasionally you came in out of the rain
and I was glad to have you.

— Courtney Queeney

13. Wait

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.

— Galway Kinell, poets.org

14. Fixing A Broken Heart

I can’t tell you
how to fix
a broken heart,
but I can tell you
the importance
of keeping moving.
I can tell you
that even when
you have no idea
which direction to go,
bravery is putting
one foot in front
of the other
anyway.

— Blake Auden

15. Disappearing Love

What happened to our love?
It used to be so bright
Loving, laughing, caring
Then soon caught the night

You were my one and only love
Cared for you too much

Then something happened
And slept with that man
You deceived me
I never felt so desperate

But I try to forgive you now
And try not to think about before
I love you so much
It just hurts to ponder now

Everything I have
Is because of you
Everything I bought
Was because of you

I just love you so much
I’m scared to lose you

— Gary R. Hess

Short Breakup Poems

Image: IStock

Sometimes, silence speaks more than words, and only a few sentences clear thoughts of sorrow that are hidden in the heart. Feel inspired to convey sad feelings by reading short breakup poems.

16. Put Heartbreak To Rest

Put heartbreak to rest.
Untangle your soul
from its tight grip.
Say goodbye to the
parts holding on.
Move forward in peace
and discover the new,
evolved you.

— Harpreet M. Dayal

17. The Fist

This 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.
— Derek Walcott

18. [you fit into me]

you fit into me
like a hook into an eye

a fish hook
an open eye

— Margaret Atwood, poets.org

19. Never Give All the Heart

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.
— William Butler Yeats

20. Unto A Broken Heart

Unto a broken heart
No other one may go
Without the high prerogative
Itself hath suffered too.

— Emily Dickinson

21. A Winter’s Tale

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?
— D.H. Lawrence

22. Ebb

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.

— Edna St. Vincent Millay, poetryfoundation.org

23. I Loved You…

Image: Shutterstock

I loved you: and, it may be, from my soul
The former love has never gone away,
But let it not recall to you my dole;
I wish not to sadden you in any way.

I loved you silently, without hope, fully,
In diffidence, in jealousy, in pain;
I loved you so tenderly and truly,
As let you else be loved by any man.

— Aleksander Pushkin

24. A Triolet Of Heartbreak

Why did you have to go away
and leave me with a broken heart.
I prayed and prayed that you would stay,
why did you have to go away.
Now every day is dark and grey,
I never thought we’d be apart.
Why did you have to go away
and leave me with a broken heart.

— Ann D. Stevenson

25. Sonnet 139

O, call not me to justify the wrong
That thy unkindness lays upon my heart;
Wound me not with thine eye but with thy tongue;
Use power with power, and slay me not by art.
Tell me thou lov’st elsewhere; but in my sight,
Dear heart, forbear to glance thine eye aside;
What need’st thou wound with cunning when thy might
Is more than my o’erpressed defense can bide?
Let me excuse thee: ah, my love well knows
Her pretty looks have been mine enemies;
And therefore from my face she turns my foes,
That they elsewhere might dart their injuries—
Yet do not so; but since I am near slain,
Kill me outright with looks and rid my pain.

— William Shakespeare

26. Proud Of My Broken Heart

Proud of my broken heart, since thou didst break it,
Proud of the pain I did not feel till thee,

Proud of my night, since thou with moons dost slake it,
Not to partake thy passion, my humility.

Thou can’st not boast, like Jesus, drunken without companion
Was the strong cup of anguish brewed for the Nazarene

Thou can’st not pierce tradition with the peerless puncture,
See! I usurped thy crucifix to honor mine!

— Emily Dickenson

27. Lost Love

I loved you more than I have ever known
Those starry eyes
Those tender lips
You made my heart melt
Then boil into a roaring fire
I now know
What my eyes could not see
You are the only one that is for me
Many nights those tears flew
Being myself without anyone
Anyone to care about the thoughts
Looking at the sky and knowing
Many mistakes I had
Many mistakes I have had.

— Gary R. Hess

Sad Breakup Poems

Everything seems lost when a heart breaks in a relationship. Sad breakup poems best describe the feelings of distress and woe of a broken heart.

28. Heavy

That time I thought I could not go any closer to grief without dying
I went closer, and I did not die.
Surely God had his hand in this, as well as friends.
Still, I was bent, and my laughter, as the poet said, was nowhere to be found.
Then said my friend Daniel, (brave even among lions),
“It’s not the weight you carry but how you carry it –books, bricks, grief –
it’s all in the way you embrace it, balance it, carry it
when you cannot, and would not, put it down.”
So I went practicing.
Have you noticed? Have you heard the laughter that comes, now and again,
out of my startled mouth?
How I linger to admire, admire, admire the things of this world
that are kind, and maybe also troubled –
roses in the wind, the sea geese on the steep waves,
a love to which there is no reply?

— Mary Oliver

29. The Broken Heart

He is stark mad, whoever says,
That he hath been in love an hour,
Yet not that love so soon decays,
But that it can ten in less space devour;
Who will believe me, if I swear
That I have had the plague a year?
Who would not laugh at me, if I should say
I saw a flash of powder burn a day?

Ah, what a trifle is a heart,
If once into love’s hands it come!
All other griefs allow a part
To other griefs, and ask themselves but some;
They come to us, but us love draws;
He swallows us and never chaws;
By him, as by chain’d shot, whole ranks do die;
He is the tyrant pike, our hearts the fry.

If ’twere not so, what did become
Of my heart when I first saw thee?
I brought a heart into the room,
But from the room I carried none with me.
If it had gone to thee, I know
Mine would have taught thine heart to show
More pity unto me; but Love, alas!
At one first blow did shiver it as glass.

Yet nothing can to nothing fall,
Nor any place be empty quite;
Therefore I think my breast hath all
Those pieces still, though they be not unite;
And now, as broken glasses show
A hundred lesser faces, so
My rags of heart can like, wish, and adore,
But after one such love, can love no more.
—John Donne

30. Mad Girl’s Love Song

I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead;
I lift my lids and all is born again.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

The stars go waltzing out in blue and red,
And arbitrary blackness gallops in:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

I dreamed that you bewitched me into bed
And sung me moon-struck, kissed me quite insane.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

God topples from the sky, hell’s fires fade:
Exit seraphim and Satan’s men:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

I fancied you’d return the way you said,
But I grow old and I forget your name.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

I should have loved a thunderbird instead;
At least when spring comes they roar back again.
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

— Sylvia Plath

31. Broken Melody

Our love, once a melody, sweet and pure,
Now lies withered, its existence obscure.
Harmony shared, and turned discordant,
Each note is a remnant of the torment.
With a heavy heart, I close this chapter’s gate.
Bidding goodbye to what I once thought was my blessed fate.

—Trisha Chakraborty

32. Breakup

And cigarettes and bad decisions stained into bedsheets
A good idea gone rogue in a moment by the chase and retreat
Words bitten off before they emerge and a sudden sense of regret
The ins and outs and turns and twists confined to breakup.

What feels good can’t hurt you until its not good anymore
Reality doesn’t touch the bedroom until someone opens the door
Grasping to skin like it’s what we had and reluctantly letting go
The push and pull of dumb ideas and a lack of self control.

An awkward smile all the while thinking that this was a mistake
A peck of a kiss, barely a touch of the lips, and sanity far too late
Stains on the skin that the shower can’t wash, they’ve soaked down to bone
The knowledge that gasps and quiet laughs doesn’t mean we aren’t gone.
And cigarettes and bad decisions stained into bedsheets
A good idea gone rogue in a moment by the chase and retreat
Words bitten off before they emerge and a sudden sense of regret
The ins and outs and turns and twist confined to breakup.

— North Carolina

33. A Broken Appointment

You did not come,
And marching Time drew on, and wore me numb,—
Yet less for loss of your dear presence there
Than that I thus found lacking in your make
That high compassion which can overbear
Reluctance for pure lovingkindness’ sake
Grieved I, when, as the hope-hour stroked its sum,
You did not come.

You love not me,
And love alone can lend you loyalty;
–I know and knew it. But, unto the store
Of human deeds divine in all but name,
Was it not worth a little hour or more
To add yet this: Once you, a woman, came
To soothe a time-torn man; even though it be
You love not me?

— Thomas Hardy, poetryfoundation.org

34. Local News: Woman Dies in Chimney

They broke up and she, either fed up or drunk or undone,
ached to get back inside. Officials surmise

she climbed a ladder to his roof, removed
the chimney cap and entered feet first. Long story short,

she died there. Stuck. Like a tragic Santa. Struggling
for days, the news explains. It was a smell that led

to the discovery of her body. One neighbor
speaks directly into the microphone, asks how a person

could disregard so much: the damper, the flue,
the smoke shelf. He can’t imagine what it was she faced.

The empty garage. The locked back door. And is that
a light on in the den? They show us the grass

where they found her purse. And it’s not impossible to picture
her standing on the patio — abandoned — the mind

turning obscene, all hopes pinned on refastening the snap.
Then spotting the bricks rising above the roof

and at first believing and then knowing, sun flashing its
god-blinding light behind it, that the chimney was the way.

— Kristin Tracy

35. Someday You’ll Miss Me Like I Missed You

Someday you’ll miss me like I missed you.
Someday you’ll cry for me like I cried for you.
Someday you’ll want me back like I wanted you.
Someday you’ll understand why you broke my heart when I didn’t.
Someday you’ll understand that I was the only girl that put up with all your mess.
Someday you’ll know how pain feels, how you hurt me.
Someday your life will turn upside down like mine did when you broke my heart.
Someday you’ll have someone hurt you like you hurt me.
Someday you’ll realize how lonely life can be.
Someday you can sit down and think how much I meant to you
When you meant the world to me.
Someday you’ll know how I really felt.
Someday you’ll try to come back to me like I tried with you,
But someday you’ll love me when I won’t love you.

— Summer

36. It Hurt More

Image: Shutterstock

They may remember my breakup because it kept coming up. Kept coming back. Some may think that my breakup was the thing that hurt the most last year. It wasn’t.
It hurt more to get my heart broken by somebody else.
It hurt more that I had to see her around every time I was around my friends.
It hurt that her name came up everywhere I went, as obscure as it was.
It hurt more that my fondest memories of last year weren’t with my former love, but with her.
It hurt more that I considered my masterpiece of a song to be one about her, and not about my former love.
It hurt more that gazing into her eyes I saw a myriad of puzzles to be solved and a seemingly endless, impossible maze that I wanted to travel in, but never got to.
It hurt more that I bottled these feelings in because I was in a relationship.
It hurt more, the nights I kept up, thinking about what if I gave it just a little more time.
It hurt more to think that maybe I made the wrong decision about who I loved.
It hurt more to rush into love like I did, and miss out on the one thing that may have been better.
It hurt more never to see her again.
It hurt more to forget her smile than my former love.
It hurt more that her laugh was one of the most beautiful sounds that I’ve forgotten.
It hurt more that I stayed up all night thinking more about her than my former love.
It hurt more to know maybe I fell in love with her more than I did my former love.
It hurt more to think about how much it must have hurt my former love to find out.
It hurt more to think how much I took from my former love, and how I threw her away in the end.
It hurt more to use the word threw away instead of broke up in that last sentence.
It hurt more that maybe a part of me still wishes things went differently
It hurt more to feel that wave of anguish to know she didn’t love me back
It hurt more to feel that feeling of defeat to think I tried so hard
It hurt more to feel nothing for my former love, and how guilty I should have felt but didn’t.
It hurt more to realize though, that through all of it, I wasn’t blameless. I had fault.
It hurt more than a thousand papercuts, cutting away, slowly at me. Taking bit by bit of myself.
It hurts most that my break up didn’t hurt me at all. It was her breaking my heart that hurt the most.
It stings now to know
That there’s a part of me that may still love her, wondering if she loved me back.
But now I’ll never know.

— Soulace

37. Shattered Dreams, Shattered Heart

You weren’t just my lover but my best friend as well.
I gave you my all when in love I fell.

If I meet someone else, and I’m not sure I will
This hole in my heart he never can fill.

With you all my dreams looked like coming true
You’ve robbed me of those, what can I now do?

You said that you loved me, that we should get wed.
We then bought a house, new kitchen & bed!

But now its all over, you want me no more
Swept out of your life like the dust on the floor.

— Alison Drew

38. Red Ghazal

I’ve noticed after a few sips of tea, the tip of her tongue, thin and red
with heat, quickens when she describes her cuts and bruises—deep violets and red.

The little girl I baby-sit, hair orange and wild, sits splayed and upside down
on a couch, insists her giant book of dinosaurs is the only one she’ll ever read.

The night before I left him, I could not sleep, my eyes fixed on the freckles
of his shoulder, the glow of the clock, my chest heavy with dread.

Scientists say they’ll force a rabbit to a bird, a jellyfish with a snake, even
though the pairs clearly do not mix. Some things are not meant to be bred.

I almost forgot the weight of a man sitting beside me in bed sheets crumpled
around our waists, both of us with magazines, laughing at the thing he just read.

He was so charming—pointed out planets, ghost galaxies, an ellipsis
of ants on the wall. And when he kissed me goodnight, my neck reddened.

I’m terrible at cards. Friends huddle in for Euchre, Hearts—beg me to play
with them. When it’s obvious I can clearly win with a black card, I select a red.

I throw away my half-finished letters to him in my tiny pink wastebasket, but
my aim is no good. The floor is scattered with fire hazards, declarations unread.

—Aimee Nezhukumatathil

39. It Feels Like A Lifetime Ago

Feels like a lifetime ago
that I loved like that.
Wanting more
and more and more.
There are no photographs.
No forgotten sweatshirts.
No saved brunch receipts
or concert tickets.
No proof that I was madly
in love with you.
We carved our names
into nothing.
My skin aches knowing
all I have left
is a fading film reel
of your smile.

— Raquel Franco

40. Waiting for This Story to End Before I Begin Another

All my stories are about being left,
all yours about leaving. So we should have known.
Should have known to leave well enough alone;
we knew, and we didn’t. You said let’s put
our cards on the table, your card
was your body, the table my bed, where we didn’t
get till 4 am, so tired from wanting
what we shouldn’t that when we finally found our heads,
we’d lost our minds. Love, I wanted to call you
so fast. But so slow you could taste each
letter licked into your particular and rose-like ear.
L, love, for let’s wait. O, for oh no, let’s not. V
for the precious v between your deep breasts
(and the virtue of your fingers
in the voluptuous center of me.)

Okay, E for enough.

Dawn broke, or shattered. Once we’ve made
the promises, it’s hard to add the prefix if. . . .
But not so wrong to try.
That means taking a lot of walks,
which neither of us is good at,
for different reasons, and nights up till 2
arguing whose reasons are better.
Time and numbers count a lot in this. 13
years my marriage. 5 years you my friend.
4th of July weekend when something that begins
in mist, by mistake (whose?), means too much
has to end. I think we need an abacus to get our love
on course, and one of us to oil the shining rods
so we can keep the crazy beads clicking,
clicking. It wasn’t a question
of a perfect fit. Theoretically,
it should be enough to say I left a man
for a woman (90% of the world is content
to leave it at that. Oh, lazy world) and when the woman
lost her nerve, I left
for greater concerns: when words like autonomy
were useful, I used them, I confess. So I get
what I deserve: a studio apartment he paid the rent on;
bookshelves up to the ceiling she drove
the screws for. And a skylight I sleep alone
beneath, and two shiny quarters in my pocket
to call one, then the other, or to call one

twice. Once, twice, I threatened to leave him—
remember? Now that I’ve done it, he says
he doesn’t. I’m in a phonebooth at the corner of Bank
and Greenwich; not a booth, exactly,
but two sheets of glass to shiver between.
This is called being street-smart: dialing
a number that you know won’t be answered,
but the message you leave leaves proof that you tried.
And this, my two dearly beloveds, is this called
hedging your bets? I fish out my other
coin, turn it over in my fingers, press
it into the slot. Hold it there. Let it drop.

— Jan Heller Levi

Goodbye Breakup Poems

Goodbye poem for the lover, who was dishonest, disloyal, and betrayed true feelings of love. They never knew how serious you were about the relationship. At the end, after all the agony and crying, feelings of hopelessness and emptiness, it’s better to say goodbye.

41. We Lost Each Other

I could ask you to stay,
But there’s really nothing left to say.

This breakup has been emotional and long,
But I know I’m strong.

I guess we naturally grew apart,
But it still hurts in my heart.

We went days without speaking or sending a text,
And I could only wonder what was next.

There were times we couldn’t look each other in the eye.
How did we get this far, and why did something so special have to die?

As I write this, memories flood me.
They remind of all we used to be.

Even when things were bad, I never thought this relationship would end.
Our broken hearts I thought we could mend.

Now you’ve left without a goodbye.
I’ve got no energy to even cry.

I knew it was over when we started doing things on our own.
You got so distant and I was alone.

I tried getting you to notice that I was still there,
But you made up your mind and didn’t care.

There are many nights when you’re all that’s on my mind.
I hope happiness is what you find.

There are days when I just can’t get out of bed.
But “try” is what you always said.

So every day I try to put on a smile.
Even if it’s not a real one for a while.

We were together for so many years, so do you ever shed tears?
I know I’ve got to let you go,

And someday I will,
But mixed emotions are what I feel.

We both made our fair share of mistakes.
It feels like I’m drowning in sadness, anger, and resentment, all in different lakes.

I honestly wish you nothing but the best
As my strength and endurance is put to the test.

— Sierra

42. What my Lips Have Kissed, and Where, and Why

What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why,
I have forgotten, and what arms have lain
Under my head till morning; but the rain
Is full of ghosts tonight, that tap and sigh
Upon the glass and listen for reply,
And in my heart there stirs a quiet pain
For unremembered lads that not again
Will turn to me at midnight with a cry.

Thus in the winter stands the lonely tree,
Nor knows what birds have vanished one by one,
Yet knows its boughs more silent than before:
I cannot say what loves have come and gone,
I only know that summer sang in me
A little while, that in me sings no more.

— Edna St. Vincent Millay

43. Walking Away

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?

— Vanessa Brown

44. Movement Song

I have studied the tight curls on the back of your neck
moving away from me
beyond anger or failure
your face in the evening schools of longing
through mornings of wish and ripen
we were always saying goodbye
in the blood in the bone over coffee
before dashing for elevators going
in opposite directions
without goodbyes.

Do not remember me as a bridge nor a roof
as the maker of legends
nor as a trap
door to that world
where black and white clericals
hang on the edge of beauty in five oclock elevators
twitching their shoulders to avoid other flesh
and now
there is someone to speak for them
moving away from me into tomorrows
morning of wish and ripen
your goodbye is a promise of lightning
in the last angels hand
unwelcome and warning
the sands have run out against us
we were rewarded by journeys
away from each other
into desire
into mornings alone
where excuse and endurance mingle
conceiving decision.
Do not remember me
as disaster
nor as the keeper of secrets
I am a fellow rider in the cattle cars
watching
you move slowly out of my bed
saying we cannot waste time
only ourselves.

— Audre Lorde

45. “Time Does Not Bring Relief; You All Have Lied”

Time does not bring relief; you all have lied
Who told me time would ease me of my pain!
I miss him in the weeping of the rain;
I want him at the shrinking of the tide;
The old snows melt from every mountain-side,
And last year’s leaves are smoke in every lane;
But last year’s bitter loving must remain
Heaped on my heart, and my old thoughts abide.
There are a hundred places where I fear
To go,—so with his memory they brim.
And entering with relief some quiet place
Where never fell his foot or shone his face
I say, “There is no memory of him here!”
And so stand stricken, so remembering him.

— Edna St. Vincent Millay, poetryfoundation.org

46. I Wanted To Make Myself Like The Ravine

I wanted to make myself like the ravine
so that all good things would flow into me.

Because the ravine is lowly, it receives an abundance.
This sounds wonderful to everyone
who suffers from lacking, but consider, too, that a ravine
keeps nothing out:

in flows a peach
with only one bite taken out of it,
but in flows, too,
the body of a stiff mouse
half cooked by the heat of the stove
it was toughening under.

I have an easygoing way about me.
I’ve been an inviting host —
meaning to, not meaning to.
Oops — he’s approaching with his tongue
already out and moving.

Analyze the risks of becoming a ravine.
Compare those with the risks of becoming a well
with a well-bolted lid.

Which I’d prefer depends largely on which kinds
of animals were inside me when the lid went on
and how likely they’d be to enjoy the water,
vs. drown, freeze, or starve.
The lesson: close yourself off at exactly the right time.

On the day that you wake up
under some yellow curtains
with a smile on your face, lock the door.
Live out your days untroubled like that.

— Hannah Gamble

47. I Hate To Cry

I’m not scared of anything.
I wish my lie were true.
I don’t want help,
I don’t need anything from you!

I hate when I cry.
I hate when I’m scared.
My life is going by
I can’t feel anything, anywhere.

I’m sad and depressed
I’m weak and abused.
I’m told I’m bad.
I just don’t know what to do.

I don’t want your help,
But I don’t want to cry.
Leave me here.
Just say goodbye!

So you’re gone….?
Good riddance, I say!
I guess I’m going to cry for
just one more day!

— Elizabeth McCrorie

48. The Self Banished

It is not that I love you less
Than when before your feet I lay,
But to prevent the sad increase
Of hopeless love, I keep away.

In vain (alas!) for everything
Which I have known belong to you,
Your form does to my fancy bring,
And makes my old wounds bleed anew.

— Edmund Waller, poetryfoundation.org

49. Time Lost

Image: Shutterstock

Wasting a lifetime
Trying to find love
Nothing happens
No hope, no girl

Suddenly see her
But ten years before
Can’t do anything
Used to be friends, nothing more

Now realized affection
Can go no further
Lost a lifetime
And lost desire

Try to forget
But can’t
Try to die
But don’t

Mind suddenly gone
No end is near
Nothing to do now
But go on.

— Gary R. Hess

50. Pretending

I’m tired of pretending
Everything is okay,
That it does not pain me
When I hear your name.

Tired of pretending
I’m not dying inside
Every time I see the smile
That reaches your eyes.

Tired of pretending
It does not hurt
Now that I know
I will never be yours.

Tired of pretending
I do not care
That you will never again
Run your fingers through my hair

But I pretend
I don’t know your name,
Just to keep
From going insane.

I pretend
You mean nothing to me,
In hopes that
I can finally breathe.

— Gina Petersen

51. Pushed Away With Tears

“I’m not good enough
for you” he said.
With tears in his eyes.
“you put to much pressure on me,
I need to live my life.”

How horrible I felt,
So scared and small.
I loved him for him.
I felt so stupid and alone.

“I’m giving up now,
please try to understand”
“I loved you once but
Never again.”
I wanted to cry
But tears wouldn’t help.

“Please don’t leave me” I said.
Falling to my knees,
“I’m sorry for my mistake,
I’m sorry for everything!”

As the noise slowly died
Silence sipped in.
I could hear his foot steps,
Gently walk away.
“He’s gone..” I said,
I pushed him away.

— Elizabeth McCrorie

52. Neutral Tones

We stood by a pond that winter day,
And the sun was white, as though chidden of God,
And a few leaves lay on the starving sod;
– They had fallen from an ash, and were gray.

Your eyes on me were as eyes that rove
Over tedious riddles of years ago;
And some words played between us to and fro
On which lost the more by our love.

The smile on your mouth was the deadest thing
Alive enough to have strength to die;
And a grin of bitterness swept thereby
Like an ominous bird a-wing….

Since then, keen lessons that love deceives,
And wrings with wrong, have shaped to me
Your face, and the God curst sun, and a tree,
And a pond edged with grayish leaves.

— Thomas Hardy, poetryfoundation.org

53. One Step At A Time

I can’t help but see what you are thinking
You wonder what happened to us
You thought that you owned my heart and soul
You thought that you had me wrapped
around your finger so tight
But there’s something that you should know
You don’t lose someone over night
It shouldn’t take you by surprise
It may be too late when you realize
You lose a heart one step at a time
I’m not trying to make excuses
There are no simple answers to explain
I never meant to hurt you this way
I never meant to cause you any pain
I can’t put it into words
or tell you why it happened this way
It wasn’t any one thing that you did
It was all those little things that you didn’t do
I know it may be too late to realize
but you lost a heart one step at a time.

— Melanie Edwards

54. I Don’t Miss It

But sometimes I forget where I am,
Imagine myself inside that life again.

Recalcitrant mornings. Sun perhaps,
Or more likely colorless light

Filtering its way through shapeless cloud.

And when I begin to believe I haven’t left,
The rest comes back. Our couch. My smoke

Climbing the walls while the hours fall.
Straining against the noise of traffic, music,

Anything alive, to catch your key in the door.
And that scamper of feeling in my chest,

As if the day, the night, wherever it is
I am by then, has been only a whir

Of something other than waiting.

We hear so much about what love feels like.
Right now, today, with the rain outside,

And leaves that want as much as I do to believe
In May, in seasons that come when called,

It’s impossible not to want
To walk into the next room and let you

Run your hands down the sides of my legs,
Knowing perfectly well what they know.

— Tracky K. Smith

Note: The poems in this collection are not original works of MomJunction but have been sourced from various authors. No claim of ownership is being made by us. Credit has been given wherever the details were available. If you are the original author of any poem and wish to have it credited or removed, please contact us. We value the creative rights of authors and will address your request promptly.

Illustration: Sad Break Up Poems To Get Over A Heart Break

Image: Stable Diffusion/MomJunction Design Team

Dive into the depths of heartbreak with powerful poems that articulate the pain and healing process. This video offers solace and understanding to those experiencing heartbreak.

Was this article helpful?

Community Experiences

Join the conversation and become a part of our nurturing community! Share your stories, experiences, and insights to connect with fellow parents.

Reviewer Author Editor

Vinita AgrawalPoet

Vinita Agrawal is an accomplished poet hailing from Indore, India. She has garnered significant recognition for her poetic endeavors, including winning the prestigious Proverse prize in Hong Kong in 2021 for her collection of poems titled "Twilight Language.

Read full bio of Vinita Agrawal

Shivank JoshiBA (Mass Communication)

Shivank is an experienced professional with a passion for writing, editing, and research. With a bachelor’s degree in Mass Communication from IEL, Dehradun, he previously worked as a production editor. Shivank transitioned into a writer/editor, contributing to various publications as a freelancer.

Read full bio of Shivank Joshi

Akshay NairMA

Akshay is an associate editor and former journalist with more than four years of experience. A post graduate in Mass Communication and Journalism, he has strong professional and academic background in the field of content writing and editing.

Read full bio of Akshay Nair