out of love

A stranger once told me, “I’m pretty sure poetry lives inside of you,” but the words have been missing for months and that’s how I know that I’m no longer in love with him.

I came to love him through the corners of his smile and the freedom of his laugh, but I fell in love with our potential and the people I thought we could help each other become. And it was easy. Our chemistry had been immediate—I relaxed into his touch even before it was familiar, and while his fingers lit my skin on fire, being held in his hands or wrapped in his arms was akin to being brought home. It was a fast burn, waves of dopamine expediting emotions that neither of us anticipated yet one of us should have predicted, and a pattern that I have vowed to never repeat in spite of the infuriatingly resilient and hopelessly romantic naïveté that I am still trying to bury.

Sometimes I think I was born to write love letters, so when I find myself questioning whether I still love him at all, I also wonder what truth that must reveal about me.

I always believed that pain was the best fuel until I fell in love, and now amongst the ruins, I realize that grief only leaves you empty. That’s how I know that I’m still swimming in sorrow, though I don’t think that means I still love him. Perhaps that’s a paradox.

He wasn’t the person I thought he was, but maybe I’m not, either.