Falling Out of Love

By Rishika Priyadarsi, 17, India

Did you see us falling in love?

I didn’t. 

We never knew of loving,

With all our capabilities, 

Till one day, we fell in love,

And love was all we had.

But after years of loving,

And falling in love,

In the most beautiful way,

I saw us fall out of love.

I felt silences become awkward.

I felt the distance of miles, sitting on the same couch.

I felt laughter becoming mere smiles, and then nothing.

I felt promises turn to words, to just silence.

And what breaks my heart,

Is that you didn’t feel it at all.

Probably, with evolving,

Loving took a back seat,

And here I was trying to mend,

Issues that you didn’t even know existed. 

I wonder which specific moment

I felt the difference,

I felt the love fade away,

But it was never one moment.

It was days of tiny efforts being withdrawn.

It was slowly taking and being taken for granted.

It was the light of our souls disappearing.

It was days turning to long evenings, and longer nights of silence.

I stand helpless, not knowing what to do.

Should I just let the love fade away?

Do I try to hold on to it tighter, hoping I don’t crush it,

Do I keep trying, seeing no efforts pay off anymore?

I envisioned the moment your hands would meet mine, 

In the middle of nothingness that we share now

It broke my heart to let go of your fingers that intertwined mine,

But the day came sooner than I could ever have guessed.

It isn’t the last that hurts, 

It is knowing that the last ones are coming sooner.

It is the fading away love that hurts,

Hurts more than the love that is gone.

I see us now,

Not loving, 

Not even trying to love,

And just leaving.

All my heart wishes for another chance,

But deep within I know it will never be the same,

And I don’t ask for another chance, 

Probably guessing, love wasn’t what we are meant for,

Or maybe, we aren’t meant for each other.

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This was a long-form poem I wrote after a few months of terrible creative block. Usually, if I am not able to write, I listen to songs. That is exactly what I did! I listened to one song on loop: Aakhri Zarra by Aditya Kalway, which is about falling out of love. Most of us talk about how beautiful it is to fall in love, but rarely do we talk of the pain seeing our partner fall out of love, while you struggle to keep the relationship going.

Photo by Paul Gilmore