Why not stay away from love that makes you sad?

Maybe because sadness is the only thing left that reminds me it was once love. There was a time when my days felt light, when hearing their voice was enough to make the world fall silent in the sweetest way. Back then, even the smallest gestures, a hand held too long, a laugh shared in the middle of a storm, felt like proof that life was kind. Now, those same memories pierce me. I hold on to them as if they are lifelines, even though they burn my palms. It’s twisted, isn’t it? To find comfort in the very thing that destroys me. Yet I stay, because some part of me believes that if love lived here once, maybe it can be reborn.

I keep telling myself love is supposed to heal, to hold, to make me feel safe. But my nights betray me. I lie awake, staring at the ceiling, while my chest feels like it’s carrying stones no one else can see. I replay their words, sometimes sharp, sometimes absent, and wonder how the same mouth that once whispered promises could leave me choking on silence. I cry quietly, always quietly, because the world doesn’t need to know how much I ache. And still, a voice inside whispers: maybe tomorrow will be different. Maybe they’ll remember the way they used to love me. That hope, fragile as it is, keeps me tethered to the very chain I wish I could break.

Why not stay away from love that makes me sad? Because walking away feels like tearing out the part of me that still believes in “us.” When I imagine letting go, I see myself folding up the photographs, erasing the texts, silencing the memories and it feels like killing a version of myself that I’m not ready to bury. I keep asking, how do you stop holding on to someone who was once your anchor in the storm? And yet, the irony cuts deep: the same anchor now drags me to the bottom. Still, there’s a glimmer in me that whispers and if I can find the strength to unfasten myself, maybe I’ll rise again. Maybe breathing won’t feel like drowning anymore.

Maybe one day I’ll be brave enough to admit this isn’t love at all. Maybe one day I’ll stop calling this pain devotion, and instead see it for what it is: a slow unraveling. Hope is cruel, but it also keeps me alive and it tells me there’s a version of me beyond this heartbreak, a version who laughs freely and sleeps without heaviness in her chest. Tonight, though, I’m still here, clutching the fragments of a love that bleeds me dry. And until I finally let go, I will keep sinking with my anchor, until nothing remains of me but ashes.

Love,

Ana 💋