You are not water to me, and I do not feel parched without you.

Yet something hurts with you gone.

You are not sunlight to me, and I do not wither away without you.

Yet something hurts when you’re gone.

You are not the only joy in my life, and I can still feel happiness without you.

Yet I feel less of it now you are gone.

You did not soothe my pain away.

But when you left, you left more.

I cannot tell what you have hurt. When I try to focus on its location, it rises like an enormous wave to engulf me, and I must abandon academic inquires in favor of fighting for survival, to keep breathing, not to drown.

The pain you gave me in place of yourself is unquantifiable and all the worse for that.

I cannot identify it, sort it away in a cold clinical category and leave it.

It is untamed, and nothing I do will train it. It does as it wants and drags me in its wake.

You took yourself away and, knowingly and purposefully, put in your place an unpredictable and frightening beast.

And if you offered to come back, I would not hesitate a moment in accepting.