The Repetition of Leaving

Years after losing love, I never thought I’d find it again. And every day, the prevailing question was: if I do find it, or if it finds me, will I be able to recognize it as such? And if I do, what then? Do I fling myself into someone else’s arms as recklessly as last time, or do I approach it with more care? Or maybe, I’ll run as fast as I can the moment I realize what it is.

It took two years before I allowed myself to believe that I wasn’t as incapable of loving as I once thought. There’s no amount of trauma or nightmare in this world that can stop a heart from beating for another, from latching itself to someone else's presence. Even in moments when I willed myself not to care, my affection would spill past the rim of my resolve and trickle into the riverbed of your person.

I acknowledged it. Then, I tried to tame it. But when it became too wild to be domesticated, I let it roam free, let it manifest unabashedly. My love moved as it pleased, offering warmth on cold days, shelter in turbulent ones, kindness where it wasn’t asked, and understanding where it wasn’t deserved. It remained generous, even after being gashed open by your beautiful hands.

When my love bled, I tended to it. I sutured its wounds, made it strong enough to crawl back into your arms. Each time it returned to me, it carried fresh injuries, new lacerations only I could nurse. I would promise my love that this time, I’d keep it safe, and that I’d banish you from its reach. But my love would cry quietly, asking to be released once more, not for hope, but for habit. And so the cycle repeated, not out of faith, but out of familiarity.

I started to wonder if love, when left unchecked, becomes compulsion. Not devotion, not softness, just a cycle that punishes the vessel it lives in. I was no longer loving you. I was surviving what it meant to have once loved you too much.

Now, I understand how love is birthed, and how it dies. A cup that once overflowed cannot do so forever. Sooner or later, the source runs dry, and there is nothing left to give. No space left for wounds to form, nor strength left for scars to heal.

My love will come home to me, and this time, it will lock itself behind callused walls, never to see you again.