After — Summary

After so many attempts I still don't feel okay After so many heartbreaks I still try to piece myself back together. After so many tears I still pull myself up After so many days of living in such an exhausting life you just want to disappear. But you can't. After I met you, I wanted to try After I tried I still couldn't be okay So I tell myself you got this. I tell myself, pick yourself back up. Yet my body just lies there. After 16 years I'm finally done. Finally done wishing for more from my life. Finally done saying, after this we'll be okay After 16 years you've won. You've broke my spirit universe.

Show the whole poemHide the poem

Learn Poems app

Try the Learn Poems app

Everything from the website trainer, and more: new exercises, voice recording and sharing, reminders, quick review.

Almost every line here begins with "After," and that repetition is the point: the speaker is stacking up years of disappointment, one weight on top of another. The poem is about exhaustion that has gone past sadness. The speaker keeps trying to recover from heartbreak, tears and failed attempts, yet still doesn't feel okay. There's a flicker of wanting to disappear, quickly shut down by "But you can't."

Meeting someone seems to have offered a reason to try again, but even that doesn't bring relief. The speaker gives themselves pep talks ("you got this," "pick yourself back up"), and the body simply doesn't respond. That gap between what the mind says and what the body does feels painfully real.

The mood turns from weary to defeated. "After 16 years I'm finally done" sounds like surrender, and "you've won" suggests the speaker feels beaten by life itself, or by a pain they can't shake. The closing image of a broken "spirit universe" leaves a heavy, hopeless tone.

Read also

More by cloverthoughts

All poems
Romanticcloverthoughts

i feel it

whatever cheesy feeling they talk about feeling in movies i feel it with you. from the first time i saw you, to every time since then. i never knew a true home until i found your arms.
Sadcloverthoughts

endless days.

Days on end, sitting in a room full of people. Not indulging in anyone but myself. Why would i?