You wake up to mascara stained pillowcases. Your eyes are swollen. You're running on three hours of sleep. Your heart hurts. Your soul hurts. Your mind hurts. It's just one bad day. He made a mistake. He didn't mean to take her home, he didn't mean to hurt you. She meant nothing. You shower, wash your body of his mistakes in order to cleanse yourself. He didn't mean it, you repeat inside of your callow and naive head.

He didn't mean it until tomorrow is the same.

The next day is the same. It's all the same. Maybe it's you. Maybe you lack beauty, you lack humor. Maybe it is you.

You wake up. You're dizzy, exhausted. Your head aches and your mind is ridden with regret. Flashes of memories from the night before electrocute your brain. You sit up, put your feet on the ground. Where are you? Who is that? You gather your clothes, find your phone, carry your shoes and journey home. You choke back tears and wonder why. Why did you only see yourself as worthy of just this one night with this one stranger?

You wake up with a throbbing head and aching body. You're ill-prepared. You put off studying for your exam. You were up all night pleading your importance to a guy that's been yours for a year. You cry, you repeat your worth until you're blue in the face, you wonder why he doesn't see it. You wonder why he viewed a party as more important than his promise to call you for the first time in weeks. The only call you receive is a drunken 10-minute phone call. The most miserable phone call. One filled with how wrong you are and how you should take your problems elsewhere. You don't understand. You go to bed because you were hung up on. You've exhausted your options. You'll hear from him in a few days but that doesn't help you sleep. You see pictures from that night. Fun-filled pictures. Girls. Alcohol. Drugs. You now realize why you paled in comparison.

You go to sleep.

You cry yourself to sleep or maybe you drink yourself to sleep.

You smoke yourself to sleep or you take pills to sleep.

You do anything to quiet your mind.

We all have something that helps us cope with unbearable nights.

We all have a crutch.

But you are more than these nights and you are more than the crutch you use. You are so much more. Why do we cry over guys who get so inebriated that they leave us for someone else? It's so twisted that they have taught us that it's okay and if it's a problem at all, it's our problem. They may only leave you for the night, but they still left. They pushed you out of their brain for a minute and a minute turned into a night. A night turns into multiple nights. But you blame yourself, don't you? You think you can't measure up to what he needs. Maybe his intoxicated decisions are his sober thoughts. He can shut them off when his body is clean. But when his thoughts are tainted and blurred, you are worthless.

But you're not worthless, he is. If he can dismiss you for a night, he is not deserving of you.

A night of drinking turns into a morning where you've questioned your importance. But it's socially acceptable to get so wasted that you go home with a complete stranger. So you do. You try to be okay with it but you're not. When you get home, you look at yourself in the mirror and you can't even recognize yourself. You cry. You shower. You scrub off the imperfections you feel that you acquired from your drunken night. But it's okay. Your night does not make you any less beautiful. It doesn't make you dirty. It was a mistake and it was a mistake you've learned from. Your heart belongs to no one but you. Don't let anyone occupy your heart that is only interested in your physical being for the night.

Do not let a stranger undress your body, let someone worthwhile undress your mind.

A pattern of broken promises leads your heart astray. You blame yourself for not being there or not being who he would rather be around. You blame yourself for not being the drugs he ingests or the alcohol that burns his throat. But you're better. And that scares him. He is stuck in this phase of temporary fun and temporary happiness. He is too immature to yet understand what you are.

You are stronger than any drug he can take and your words should make him tipsier than the alcohol he drinks.

You are beautiful and you are not the mistakes you have made.

You will never be the girl that you allowed yourself to once be.

You are stronger and more beautiful thanks to the lessons you have learned.