People think grief is loud.
And, at first, it is.
It crashes through your life without warning. It sits beside you at dinner. Follows you into grocery stores. Wakes you up at 2 a.m. just to remind you that everything changed.
But eventually, grief changes shape.
It gets quieter. Stranger. More woven into your bones than sitting on top of them.
That’s the version of grief I wrote this book for.
How to Breathe With a Broken Lung was never meant to be polished or perfect. I didn’t want to write poems that sounded distant from pain. I wanted to write the kinds of words I searched for when I felt like no one understood how exhausting survival could be after loss.
This collection is about grief, but it’s also about what comes after:
the strange rebuilding,
the guilt of laughing again,
the loneliness of healing,
the way love keeps existing even after someone is gone.
Some poems are sharp.
Some are soft.
Some barely whisper.
But all of them are honest.
If you’ve ever felt like the world expected you to “move on” while part of you was still standing in the wreckage, I hope this book reminds you that healing doesn’t always look beautiful. Sometimes it just looks like continuing.
And sometimes continuing is enough.
Thank you to everyone who has supported my writing, shared my work, or trusted me with your own stories. Every message means more than you know.
I hope these poems find the people who need them most.
— Melly
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