-Love, the deadliest of all deadly things:  It kills you both when you have it and when you don't.
But that isn't it, exactly. The condemner and the condemned.  The executioner; the blade; the last-minute reprieve; the gasping breath and the rolling sky above you and the thank you, thank you, thank you, God. Love:  It will kill you and save you, both.

-Don't make me sad, don't make me cry. Sometimes love is not enough and the road gets tough I don't know why - Lana Del Rey

500 Days of Summer is not a love story. It is a story of unbearable heartbreak, one-sided love, and an expectation vs. reality outlook on a man who has fallen in love with someone who does not love him back. He falls in love with her the moment he sees her, but she only sees it as a short-time commitment. He sees her as someone he will marry one day, but she won't name him as her boyfriend. When 500 days is almost reached with his journey with Summer, he starts to realize she doesn't feel the same as he does for her. As the days go on, he doesn't know what went wrong or how he can fix it. Summer tells him that they will only ever be friends and his idea of love is torn. He doesn't believe he'll ever find someone like Summer and doesn't know if he even wants to try. She created a perfect world of love for him and then crushed it, blowing all the pieces of his memories around in his mind until he can no longer bearthink of love as anything but a disease. For months he's struck with heartbreak, the worst feeling in all of human nature. He knows that he will never get her back, and that he must somehow move on. I believe moving on is the hardest part. "The depth of your love is the depth of your wound tomorrow." Ritu Ghatourey. Your first love will always be your first love, even if they don't still love you back. Sometimes you have to force yourself to accept that possibility and know that you had a great love once, shared some of your greatest memories and that'll be enough. Getting over a lost love is one of the hardest things to go through and may seem impossible, but I know  that there is someone out there for everyone and we must create ourselves and our experiences in order to find that one. "90 percent of life is just showing up". -Mr. McCuaig

-The cure is a process in which scientists take out a part of the brain that causes humans to have feelings related to love and affection. In order to be cured, there is a process before it in which teenagers are asked questions by "evaluators" like what's your favorite color, or what do you like to do in your free-time to see when that person should be cured and whether or not the disease has taken place. Most teenagers are forced by society to go through the procedure of getting half of their brain removed. This reminded me of the book series "Hunger Games". Society had set up a strict set of rules and procedures for humanity and if they didn't obey, they would immediately be killed. The government had taken away people's rights and now fully controlled what they thought was right. Delirium and the Hunger Games deals with the question of what is right and what is wrong, and whether or not people will make their own choices reguardless of what society believes.

-Lena believes that her childhood best friend Hana has always been against the cure. She doesn't want to be friends with her midway through the book, but as Lena starts to fall in love with a boy named Alex, she starts to see through the eyes of Hana and accept her decision to ruin the cure.

-While Lena was going through her evalutions, a pack of stampeding cows had been let in and she could no longer be evaluted. This was one of the most important turning points in her character arc. Lena's life could have been changed forever if she was cured, but the "Invalids" (people who refuse to be cured) saved her from the procedure and she could still love. I believe this shaped who Lena was.

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How do I mend a broken heart?
My entire world has fallen apart.
How do I  find hope in a brand new day,
when the one I love has gone away?

My mind overflows with memories of you,
of all that we've shared, all that we  knew.
I long for your touch and your warm embrace,
the look in your eyes,  the smile on your face.

My dreams are filled with your soft gentle kiss,
I  wake and cry for all that I miss.
How do I mend a broken heart,
when my  one true love and I are apart?

My heart knows to love only you, it won't let  go, what do I do?
Our moments together were precious and few,
but I  cherished them all more than you knew.
I love you my angel and always  will,
I loved you then and I love you still.

-Jenna

Source: Broken Heart Poem, A Broken Heart http://www.familyfriendpoems.com/poem/a-broken-heart#ixzz2URaOLXUT
www.FamilyFriendPoems.com

How do I mend a broken heart?
My entire world has fallen apart.
How do I  find hope in a brand new day,
when the one I love has gone away?

My mind  overflows with memories of you,
of all that we've shared, all that we  knew.
I long for your touch and your warm embrace,
the look in your eyes,  the smile on your face.

My dreams are filled with your soft gentle kiss,
I  wake and cry for all that I miss.
How do I mend a broken heart,
when my  one true love and I are apart?

My heart knows to love only you, it won't let  go, what do I do?
Our moments together were precious and few,
but I  cherished them all more than you knew.
I love you my angel and always  will,
I loved you then and I love you still.

-Jenna

under my cloud

shadow of doubt
clouds over my mind
make my decision
I need more time

disease in my head
feelings toward you
skin so soft
eyes so blue

cloud over my head
holds back my luck
drained of affection

-Derek de Barrio

Disease of Your Affection

Don't lie to make me happy
I don't need a tainted charm
Your false feelings
Bring emotional harm

I am afraid of loneliness
Our love no longer true
But can I stand alone
Without leaning on you

Disease of your affection
Penetrating me
Your beauty like a virus
Attacking violently

Not to worry, I'll be fine
I'll make it through the day
But when tomorrow comes
I'll have the courage to walk away

-Derek de Barrio

-In order to be cured, teenagers must go through an evalution to see if they should be cured relatively soon or not. During Lena's evalution, the "invalids" (people who are against the cure) had released a stampede of cows into the room and Lena could no longer be evaluted. The invalids had saved her from the procedure and I believe this was one of the highest points on Lena's character arc. She could remain uncured and fall in love, which she does in the end.

-Lena's childhood memories of her monther's suicide creep into her dreams every night. I believe the book hints that Lena's mother didn't commit suicide, that in fact, the government couldn't cure her after numerous procedures and therefore had to kill her to keep society safe.

-While Lena searched for Hana at a "Wild" party, the cops surrounded the house and let dogs loose on all of the uncureds. Lena's leg was ripped apart and she could barely walk. She managed to escape and went home. Her family had noticed her limp but made an assumption that she only had some sort of stress fracture from running. It seems really unlikely that her family would not notice how much pain Lena was in and how the blood seeped through her pant legs. 

-I wonder if Lena will believe in the disease at the end of the novel. I wonder if in the end, Alex will break her heart.

- I wonder if Lena will escape from Maine and go into the Wilds with Alex.

-Lena's childhood friend is Hana, who she finds out is completely against the cure. At first, Lena doesn't want to associate herself with a "wild" and refuses to speak to Hana. But as the novel progresses, Lena falls in love with Alex, an "invalid" that scarred his temple to seem as if he had gone through the procedure, but in actuality, still has the disease. I was amazed that Lena allowed herself to fall in love with a boy and reach out to someone she barely knew. Lena had resently Hana for rebelling against society, but now that she has fallen in love with Alex, she can no longer judge Hana.

-Music plays a huge part for Lena as she begins to sink deeper and deeper into the world of the invalids. She says that the music moves her in and shes stuck in a hynoptic sway that is unlike anything she has ever felt. This was the beginning of her developement towards rejecting the cure.

-The cure is a process in which scientists take out a part
of the brain that causes humans to have feelings related to love and affection.
In order to be cured, there is a process before it in which teenagers are asked
questions by "evaluators" like what's your favorite color, or what do
you like to do in your free-time to see when that person should be cured and
whether or not the disease has taken place. Most teenagers are forced by
society to go through the procedure of getting half of their brain removed.
This reminded me of the book series "Hunger Games". Society had set
up a strict set of rules and procedures for humanity and if they didn't obey,
they would immediately be killed. The government had taken away people's rights
and now fully controlled what they thought was right. Delirium and the Hunger
Games deals with the question of what is right and what is wrong, and whether
or not people will make their own choices reguardless of what society believes.

-Lena believes that her childhood best friend Hana has
always been against the cure. She doesn't want to be friends with her midway
through the book, but as Lena starts to fall in love with a boy named Alex, she
starts to see through the eyes of Hana and accept her decision to ruin the
cure.

-While Lena was going through her evalutions, a pack of
stampeding cows had been let in and she could no longer be evaluted. This was
one of the most important turning points in her character arc. Lena's life could
have been changed forever if she was cured, but the "Invalids"
(people who refuse to be cured) saved her from the procedure and she could
still love. I believe this shaped who Lena was.

What if love wasn't important. What if love was just a silly
idea that gave us crazy butterflies, sweaty palms, and a fast heartbeat? But
even worse, what if love was considered a disease to be eradicated? That's the
world that Lena lives in. She's still vulnerable to the disease in the
beginning of the novel, but soon she will undergo the procedure, one that
everyone in her society goes through, which will make her unable to feel any
sort of love or affection.  Before the
procedure, Lena falls in love with Alex, a boy created a permanant scar over
his temple to trick the government into believing he was cured. Lena encounters
numerous attacks by the government that leave her to believe that everything
her society believes is wrong. It's really a creative story with a main
character who changes drastically from beginning to end. Delirium is
imaginative and has a great concept of why love will never go away.