I Don’t Smile Anymore When I Hear Your Name
I don’t smile anymore when I hear your name. I don’t feel the tingling sensation of our love returning to my body. In fact, I feel them leaving. Every time someone says your name I lose a little bit more love for you.
Your name doesn’t remind me of long walks on the beach and conversations under the moonlight. It reminds me of cold nights and awkward silence. It reminds me of intimate details and secrets gone to waste.
Your name doesn’t make me want to pick up the phone and call you like I used to. It reminds me of the nights I stayed next to my phone waiting for your name to pop up. It reminds of the final text you sent and how I turned my phone off and shoved it away.
Your name doesn’t hold the same meaning like it used to. It doesn’t reflect the greatest love of my life or my sweetest devotion. It means something else now – indifference. It means all my emotions detaching themselves from you and finding their way back to me. It means saving those emotions for someone who takes good care of them.
Your name doesn’t sing the same song to my heart. It doesn’t sing happy songs and beautiful words declaring love. I don’t replay it in my head and I don’t try to memorize it. I can barely hear it – the words are flat. For the first time I don’t feel like singing along or even listening to it.
Your name doesn’t make me empathetic either. I don’t reminisce about what we had and try to bring it back, I don’t see it as love lost anymore and I don’t see it as irreplaceable. Your name makes me think of you as an experience, a memory, a lesson – a painting that was supposed to be beautiful but turned out all squiggly.
Your name doesn’t remind me of warm fuzzy nights and clinking wine glasses. Every time someone mentions your name, the room gets colder. Every time someone mentions your name, I hear the wine glasses break piece by piece.
Your name doesn’t make me want to look back anymore. I don’t think of you and miss you. I don’t wonder about you. Your name now makes me want to move on, it makes me want to walk away, and it makes me want to go to another place – a place where nobody says your name. 
