They say that whatever doesn't kill you only makes you stronger, but life just keeps coming over and over again to knock you down from behind when you are least expecting it. When one relationship ends, cliches about how there are many other fishes in the sea are all over the place, and yet we forget that really, in the end, they are all fishes; not mammals, not reptiles, not insects, just fishes. Maybe I am not making much sense, but to a broken heart and a scarred soul, everything makes sense except the fact that they have been abandoned by the one other heart, other soul that really mattered to them.

They say that love is like a drug. Inhale it and feel the bliss, but when the effects die your world comes crashing down. The sunglasses you are wearing is yanked from your face and the true nature of the sun is revealed to you. It scorches your eyes till they burn. And isn't there a saying that your eyes are the windows to your soul? Maybe that explains that heart-wrenching emotion that accompanies the tears that flow. Adele described it in her song “Fire to the Rain” when she sang the chorus:

“And I set fire to the rain/watched it pour as I touched your face/well it burned while I cried ‘cause I heard it screaming out your name”

They say that tears purge the soul of its bitterness. This, there is a truth to. So tonight as I cry over a lover that does not treat me right, and ex lovers that could star in my very own version of “To All the Boys I Ever Loved”, bits of the bitterness is washed away. The first lover met innocence at heart and bruised it, and the ones that followed nursed the bruises, tended to the scars and added a few ugly marks of their own. Life has never been the same since that first time. And every new fish in the sea comes with their own promises – as if the usual political propaganda. They leave with long speeches too… as if that would soften the impact. They are just harsh words buttered with the dynamics of the English language. In the end, they represent the same thing – heartbreak. And the memories threaten to drive you crazy. In the middle of reality, you scream to yourself, “Stop it!”, a simple plea to stop your mind from reminding you about all the reasons for your pain.

They say many of the people who are in the mental hospital ended up there because of love. And now that is your fear. The broken promises torment you, and what was taunts you. The skies are grey, and smiles are just for society’s prudish standards. You love him. You love her. You know you do! And yet they make you cry… it’s their only detriment. With every tear that falls, a little bit of the love pales into the gloomy horizon. This has happened before. You know that soon – very soon – the love will morph into hate and hurt. You’ll tell yourself you deserve better, and yet the previous loves stain your heart. Is there detergent to wash this away?

They say that teenage relationships cannot be taken seriously because we do not understand what love means. If we do not, then why is the pain so real? And when we slit our wrists to drown the emotional with the physical, is that too an illusion? And when we hang ourselves or overdose or become drug addicts or very angry people who aim to hurt everyone else like we are hurting, is that too not defining enough for the power of our emotions? They want to know why we crumble and yet they do not find us capable of feeling what we say we feel. Who listens to us then? How do we drown the pain?

They say that time heals wounds. Then again, they say time does not heal our wounds; it buries them with sand. That might explain why no matter how much time has passed, it stings a little. Every single time. After breathing someone and being with them, we realise we have no choice but to wean ourselves off them like we would a drug. And in that fleeting moment, we come to understand, as we gather the shards of our broken hearts, that we are truly alone. Demi Lovato sings;

“You ain’t nobody till you got somebody”

And that somebody is yourself.

 You, you and you alone.

No, wait, wait! I’m not done. Because still, you hope and pray that they will come back, and they see you in their dreams as you do. These fantasies are what make it clear to you that love was the fine line between sanity and insanity, and now that it has thinned out, there is no difference.

Asylum.