What Happens When Love Leaves You

When love leaves you, the world moves slower, day by day. There is no jolt of excitement, no influx of texts to look forward to, no after work or school plans to make. There is just the notion of existing and the banal pattern of routines, of breathing in and out, wondering what the intent of life is anyway.

When love is here, there is intent and reason. There is a reason to wake up every morning. There are unfinished conversations from the night before to resume and new ones to begin. There is a reason to communicate, someone to share a story, event or thought with, no matter how trivial or insignificant.

When love is here, you observe the time too frequently in anticipation of seeing them next. You imagine the comfort of their arms and the reassurance of their embrace. You anticipate their touch, the moment your lips will meet and render your thoughts in defeat. You dream of this with each glance towards the clock and you can’t help but smile.

But when love is gone, it won’t matter how many times you turn to the clock, because there is no promise of return. Love left and took all those promises they once made. Now you are here, holding on to the empty words of past encounters, thinking if there was any truth in hindsight.

Love once promised permanency, told you they would always try. Love promised dual effort and a dual conclusion. Love promised each could decide together on the future direction, even if meant cessation. Love promised honesty, promised you they would be clear of their feelings, no matter how unpleasant. Love promised but only ever lied because when things went astray, love picked up their bags without even a goodbye.

And now you wonder why? You think internally of possible explanations and you draw upon past memories, thinking where you went wrong. You reflect and reflect on yourself as the reason for their departure because nothing else seems plausible.

It doesn’t seem conceivable; it’s all too irrational to comprehend. And when you do try to even understand, it only hurts more and more. Your throat swells up with the truth and you will often cry in places and at times inconvenient to your effort to move on. Somehow at some point, their love for you ceased or no longer sufficed and that grave realization hits you hard. It pushes you against a wall and you try to grasp on to some stability and sense, but there’s no leverage, just an inevitable fall that pins you to the bathroom floor in tears.

When love leaves, they do leave one thing behind. When love leaves, they leave behind fragments of a great past love, the other half who picks up the pieces and exists in an odd realm of adoration and misery — adoration for what was, and misery for what remains.