My book of poetry, Arrive, was written at a time when I was still processing and healing, or in other words, at a time when I was either still in love or holding onto love. Sometimes, it is hard to tell the difference.
Anyways, the point is that I am no longer in love, and as I let her go, so, too, went the memories. Or at least the feeling that came with the memories, like clouds drifting silently into the night.
To write what happened here without the feeling in my heart is impossible, because it is the feeling itself that happened. This is the same thing that made it hard to explain to friends and family and the psychiatrist who asked me, I don’t get it, what was so special about her, anyway?
It is the feeling, the feeling, the feeling.
The feeling of falling, the feeling of losing yourself in a new world, the feeling of coming home. But now that feeling is no longer here, so to sit and do justice to it is impossible.
But if you have fallen in love, and I mean the type of love that sweeps you into oblivion, that carries you out to the depth of the ocean sea with nothing to save you when the storm hits, then you will understand.
There is no logic to this kind of love, there is no healthy rationale to explain what you see in this other person. It makes the question, what was so special about her, anyway? as useless as asking, why me?
Because it has nothing to do with their qualities, it has to do with oxygen.
You are drowning in the middle of the ocean, and they are your oxygen. They are indeed life itself, both the giver and the destroyer, and without them there is nothing left in this world worth living for. How do you explain such an irrationality without first living it yourself?
For this reason it is a complete waste of time to explain heartbreak to someone, because if they have experienced it they already understand. And if they haven’t, no explanation will ever help them understand.