This Is What It Was Like The Day After You Left

I don’t remember the apartment ever feeling so empty, so cold, so hollowed out. The second you walked out with the last box I knew it would never feel like home again. I don’t remember what it was like before you. All I can remember is your laugh echoing through the house watching TV and your constant need to know how much longer until dinner was ready. All I can remember now is the way your arms wrapped around me while you were asleep.

It’s hard to think that I will be okay again and that this apartment will become as colorful as it once was. I can’t imagine that this place will hear laughter or yelling for a long time, only sobs and silence and I don’t know if I can take all of this.

Going from seeing you everyday to not knowing when I’ll see you next is killing me. I’d rather walk on Legos barefoot or be lost in a foreign country than have to live another day without you. Now, memories play on repeat in my mind, taunting me of what I’ve lost, reminding me that the past is the past and this, right here, right now, is my present. Reminding me that you’re nothing more than those memories. Nothing more than a name embedded in my brain.

I feel like this house, abandoned and broken and empty. I don’t recognize myself with this frown and broken heart. It’s as if the reflection looking back at me is some stranger who has forgotten how to manage as a normal human being.

Sometimes, we come across things extraordinary and we forget what normalcy is and we lose ourselves in the idea that love last forever, as if life were some movie.

The reality of love is that it, sometimes, comes and go and accepting that is nothing less than impossible.