Holding on to Heartache: A Story

​I was writing this just as all the drama erupted on X (formerly known as Twitter) yesterday July 14, 2025. I follow and frequently post on social media about singer-songwriter Louis Tomlinson. I'm a fan for a variety of reasons. But I'm also a poet and an artist and one of my favorite songs on his Faith in the Future album is Holding on Heartache.​ Louis wrote ​t​his along with James Vincent McMorrow, J​. Moon and Fred Ball​. It was released on November 11, 2022 Find the full lyrics and song here. So I wrote a poetic story​ - my opinion of what he might have been thinking when he wrote those lyrics. 

He stands at the edge of midnight, heart beating in borrowed time, holding on to heartache like a secret. Birds passing by, leaving him standing alone but still singing under moonlight and stars.

What is left are old scars burned into skin. Some are colorless memories mostly gone. There’s a softness to this ache, a memory that refuses to fade, the weight of a name rarely spoken, the silence where promises once stayed. He knows the party’s over. Nothing stays the same.

Rain against the window, echoes of a love half-spilled—every street lamp was a witness to the vows the dawn never fulfilled. Those days. But he was young. Too young. How could he have known.

He says he’s fine. He’s not. He’s a house that remembers every storm, walls lined with photographs that don’t look back. Seems like nothing was ever easy.

He tried to outrun it—crossed many borders, changed seasons, but heartache is clever like two ghosts in shadow, always one step ahead, always the last to leave.

He holds onto fragments; wears them like a crown: the way laughter lingered in the hallway, the night they danced in the kitchen with no music. A sweater left behind, the taste of hope after midnight.

He wants to let go, but sometimes letting go means forgetting—and forgetting would mean losing the only proof the thing ever existed. So he keeps it, this tender ache, wears it like a medal for loving hard and surviving harder.

But a clock is tickin’. There’s a silence. A darkness he drifts to.

He hears a song in his head and picks up a pen.

You know the party's over
When you're standin' in an empty space alone
And time can always heal ya
If you let it make its way into your bones
Nothing's ever easy
To be honest, I'm not easy on myself
The second that I see ya
The space between us just comes floodin' back

This time he feels a release. Time is a gentle thief, softening the sharpest edges, turning memory to melody. Heartache, too, begins to fade. Time is precious.

He wakes to the gold of morning, windows open, breath steady, sunlight dissolving old shadows.

At last, his hands unclench. He taps his heart twice. It's a reminder to stay present and with that the ache slips quietly away. He is unafraid now, ready to love what comes next, knowing the past can live in the light without holding him back.

He steps outside, heart lighter. He lets go, not to forget, but to finally begin again.

And as he steps out a sea of faces rise to meet him, thousands of eyes shining in the dark, each one carrying pieces of his story. They're holding signs. They miss him and he doesn't know why he's so surprised. They've been there before, many times. Their loud voices wrap around him like a blanket, familiar and warm, and in their gaze he finds a mirror, one that reflects both his ache and his hope.

He sees himself in their smiles, their raised hands, the words they sing back—
as if they’ve carried him all this way, as if they’ve always known the truth behind the verses.

He is not alone, they know him and in a strange way better than anyone, an intimacy forged in shared songs and sleepless nights, raw, bold and colorful, a recognized pain and a shared healing.

With every beat, he draws strength from their presence, from the wild, wordless love that fills the space between stage and crowd.

Again, tonight, he steps forward into the light, not as a man haunted by heartache, but as one who’s survived and knows without doubt, he is seen and loved.