I miss when love felt simple. When love was without thought and without worry. I miss when love felt as natural and as easy as breathing, when everything we did and everything we said was out of love, without having to make it so.

I miss when love was not a list of reasons why I should stay and why I should go, neither of them winning, neither of them making sense. I miss when love was not tangled up in resentment and hurt, and anger. When love was not a battle about who was right and who was wrong when we talked about things openly and calmly because being together was more important to us than who had won the fight. I miss when love was not a place to fire shots at my already raw wounds when you did not say things you knew would make me unravel. I miss when hate was not dressed up as love just to justify your desire to pull me apart.

I miss when love was not a game of secrets when I had to play detective to uncover your latest crime. I miss when you told me things before I discovered them, I miss when there was never anything to discover in the first place. I miss when your phone did not feel like a loaded weapon when it did not feel like something which would go off and rip my entire world apart. I miss when female names did not feel like stab wounds to my chest when I was not convinced you wanted to fuck her or already had. I miss calmness inside my body instead of this twisting, sickening feeling like I’m hurtling towards the ground.

I miss when love was not dreading come home from work to the house which makes me feel trapped and suffocated when I am afraid of what I might say or do to piss you off. Why am I always pissing you off? I miss when your body felt like safety, like shelter, rather than the thing I must hide from. I miss when your lips on mine sent fireworks bouncing around my body, setting my skin alight, instead of making me feel conflicted. I miss when you were the answer to every question, not the one creating them.

I miss when love felt simple. When love was exactly what I had spent my whole life knowing it to be. I miss when love was just happiness and contentment when our love was the definition of the word. I miss when I knew that what I felt and what we shared was love. It was easier that way, certain, concrete. Love meant you and me forever, for always.

But now, I’m not sure what love is, I’m not even sure it lives with us anymore. I miss when love was not tears and screaming arguments, and slamming doors. When love was not locking myself in the bathroom and sobbing so much my chest felt as if it might collapse. When love was not you serving up every perceived flaw and delivering it to me again and again, like the more you do it, the less it will hurt.

I miss when love was not this, not hurtful, not pain, not dates set in the future when I convince myself I’ll be able to leave. I miss when love felt like love, like flying, like freedom. I miss when love did not feel like a knife carving away at me, taking pieces of me, making me come apart.

I miss when love felt simple.