I Wrote a Poem Every Time I Fell in Love

There’s a notebook I keep hidden at the back of my closet.

Its cover is worn and the pages are stained with coffee, old tears, and fingerprints from years of thumbing through the past.

It’s not organized or polished. Some poems are half-finished. Some are only a few broken lines, scribbled at 3 A.M. under the dim light of my bedside lamp.

But each one tells the same story:

Every time I fell in love, I wrote a poem.

At first, it wasn’t intentional.

The first poem happened when I was seventeen.

His name was Samir, and his laughter was the sound I wanted to hear every morning for the rest of my life.

I didn’t have the courage to tell him what he meant to me, so I did the next best thing. I picked up a pen and spilled my heart onto the page.

"Your smile made me forget

how the earth is supposed to hold me down."

It was raw. Embarrassing, even.

I never showed it to anyone.

But writing it made the feeling real. It made the love real.

As I grew older, the habit followed me.

Every time someone stirred something inside me — excitement, tenderness, hope — I turned it into words.

There was Ali, the boy who made the world seem bigger, full of adventures waiting around every corner.

There was Nida, my best friend, the one whose kindness cracked open spaces in me I didn’t know needed healing.

And later, there was Rehan, whose departure taught me that sometimes the deepest loves are the ones that cannot stay.

"You taught me how to stay,

right before you left."

Each poem was a timestamp — a reflection not just of who I loved, but of who I was at the time.

Looking back, I realize:

I wasn’t just falling in love with people.

I was falling in love with versions of myself — the hopeful dreamer, the fierce protector, the heartbroken warrior.

The poems captured my journey better than any journal ever could.

Not polished Instagram captions or carefully curated Facebook statuses, but the real, messy evolution of a heart learning what it meant to be vulnerable.

Sometimes the poems were joyful.

They sounded like sunlight pouring through windows and the feeling of a hand slipping into yours for the first time.

"You looked at me like I was something

worth finding in a crowded room."

Other times, they were drenched in sadness — heavy with the kind of goodbyes you never get to say properly.

"I watched you leave

before you even took a step."

But every poem, whether born out of bliss or heartbreak, was a love letter to my capacity to feel.

I remember sitting on my apartment floor one evening after a particularly brutal breakup.

Around me, scraps of paper formed a chaotic halo — poems from years of loving and losing.

And for the first time, instead of feeling broken, I felt proud.

Because here was proof that I survived every fall.

Here was proof that I dared to give my heart away, even knowing it might come back bruised.

Through my poems, I saw a pattern:

Every time I loved, I expanded.

Even when it ended in silence, even when it ended in tears, I grew.

Not weaker.

Stronger.

I also learned that love doesn’t always mean forever.

Sometimes love is a season.

Sometimes it’s a chapter.

Sometimes it’s just a page.

And that's okay.

Because the important part isn't how long it lasted.

The important part is that I loved at all.

"I wrote you a thousand lifetimes,

even though you only stayed for a chapter."

These days, my poems aren't just for people anymore.

I write for moments.

For the soft sound of rain against my window.

For the courage it takes to forgive myself.

For the mornings when getting out of bed feels like winning a war.

I write for me.

I often wonder what would have happened if I hadn't started writing all those years ago.

Would I have lost pieces of myself in those relationships?

Would I have forgotten who I was between heartbreaks?

Instead, poetry gave me a mirror.

It showed me that my worth wasn’t tied to who stayed or who left.

It reminded me that I am still whole, still beautiful, even after all the storms.

When people hear my story, they ask:

"Do you regret any of those loves?"

I don’t.

Because even in the heartbreak, there was beauty.

Even in the mistakes, there was growth.

Each poem was a seed planted in the messy, complicated soil of life.

And today, those seeds have blossomed into a garden of resilience, hope, and self-love.

"I loved recklessly,

I lost fearlessly,

I lived fully."

So if you’ve ever fallen too fast, loved too hard, hurt too deeply —

Pick up a pen.

Write your story.

It doesn’t have to be perfect.

It just has to be true.

One day, you’ll flip through those pages and realize:

You weren’t just writing about them.

You were writing about yourself.

You were writing your way back home.