My most recent temporary, chemical imbalance in the brain was six years ago… but I’m fully recovered now.

Even after she had left for good, somehow she was still here. I knew that she was. I could still feel her presence.
She haunted the place.

She was woven into the fabric of the building. I could still recall her voice, her laughter, her smile. I called her name and it whispered on the wind across 5,000 miles. I blew her a kiss and it transcended time and place to fall upon her lips.

She was everywhere but she was nowhere. She was gone. It was all in my mind. She was lost to me. I couldn’t feel her. She couldn’t touch me.

She was not like bricks and mortar and she was not woven into the fabric of the building. I could no longer hear her voice. And when I called her name it did not whisper on the wind. It only rebounded back to me from the four walls of my room, reminding me of emptiness and solitude.

When I blew a kiss, it did not transcend time and space to fall upon her lips. It was all wishful thinking.

But does she still think about me? And if she does, how does she think of me? And if she ever reads my words again, will she be reminded of my voice, my laughter, my smile? Some people are easily remembered and others easily forgotten. Will she forget to remember me or deliberately remember to try to forget?

Love is... forever. Love is... always being together— a hundred tired, romantic clichés. Romantic love is a virtuous ideal. But who is truly capable of it? Who is capable of sacrificing everything, even one’s life, for the person they profess to love? The ultimate sacrifice. The urge for self preservation may be stronger. Words are meaningless without action, just empty rhetoric that sounds good until put to the test.

I love you, and I want you to love me. I do not want to force you to love me or to love me for all of the wrong reasons. I want to capture your free will and for you to love me as I love you. A contradiction in terms? I want you but you have to come to me because you want to. I have you but only because you let me have you.

“I love you” — well perhaps but I can’t really tell. Maybe it was something I ate earlier that has caused a temporary chemical imbalance in my brain. Or maybe I do love you, until I have to put it to the test. Is that good enough? I pledge my heart to you, with certain opt-outs, clauses and conditions. All I ask is that you love me unconditionally and forever. Am I being selfish? But I am my “self?” So I guess that I am.

And when my tears fell after you left, were they merely salty discharge brought about by that temporary chemical imbalance in the brain? Well let me think… I don’t think so. They were tears of passion. And it was not the result of some dietary condition that caused me to be attracted to you. I did not need an aphrodisiac where you were concerned. It was simply you. You caused it.

I’m not in love with an empty room, bricks and mortar or a memory. I’m in love with you. I already had the foundation to my existence before you came along. You just built on top of it and made it glow. No clauses, opt-outs or conditions. No empty rhetoric. I will love you unconditionally until the day I die… erm… can I think about that and get back to you?