They say home is where the heart is. But what happens when your heart doesn’t live with you anymore?
I thought I saw you by the gate the other day. It wasn’t just a passing face—it felt like the familiar shape of comfort, someone I once called home. I called out, half in joy, half in hope: “Hey, won’t you wait?” But you walked past. No flinch. No flicker of recognition. Just the silence of someone who had forgotten what I still remember in vivid detail.
That moment hit harder than I expected. Nostalgia gripped me like a vice, its edges sharp and sudden. It’s funny, isn’t it? The irony of remembering so clearly when someone else seems to have erased you from their memory. It stings. And then it stays.
Now I find myself cold every night. Not because the air is biting, but because something within has frozen. I crave your warmth—not just physical, but emotional, the kind of warmth that came with your laughter, your voice at 2 a.m., your sleepy hums and whispered reassurances. Without that, even the sun seems to wear a shadow.
People tell you to move on. To heal. To “get over it.” But you don’t just snap your fingers and rewire your heart. You live through the ache. You breathe through the hollowness. And when you’re alone with your thoughts, you start to realize the strangest thing—if home really is where the heart is, then I’ve been homeless ever since you left.
I remember sitting on the rooftop one night, trying to shake off that ache. The city below was alive, but I felt ghostlike. Then a shooting star flashed by—bright, fleeting, and gone before I could blink. I wanted to catch it, make it stay. I closed my eyes, crossed my heart, and made a wish.
All I wanted was to open my eyes to your kiss. Magical, grounding, real. But it didn’t come. The night remained quiet. Wishes, after all, aren’t contracts. They’re desperate hopes whispered to the universe.
Now, the days pass differently. Coffee cups litter my floor—remnants of sleepless nights, memories steeped in caffeine and longing. It’s one cup, then another, and another. I try to drown you out, I do. But you keep springing back. In songs, in strangers’ faces, in words I once heard from you.
I take the train sometimes—aimlessly, really. Hoping that maybe, just maybe, the movement will carry me back to the version of me that still felt whole. But the journey always ends the same. I step off. I look around. I’m still alone.
That’s when the realization fully lands: I haven’t just lost you. I’ve lost home. Because if home is where the heart is, then I’m not just heartbroken—I’m emotionally homeless.
People don’t talk enough about this kind of loss. The invisible kind. The kind where nothing dramatic happens—no explosive fights, no big goodbyes. Just someone slowly fading from your life. And with every inch they retreat, a piece of your foundation crumbles.
But here’s the thing I’ve begun to learn: sometimes homelessness of the heart isn’t permanent. Sometimes, you build new homes. In new people. In quiet mornings. In songs you haven’t discovered yet. You stitch yourself back together, one sunrise at a time.
Still, for now, the ache remains. And it points back to you.