You

Looking back now, I think pain was self serving, I stayed awake most nights and survived. I understood what it felt like to be alone, and truly alone, and I worried and I wondered until I could no longer imagine what it would be like if he were to come back. But, somehow, I knew myself more than ever in the solitude and spoke to disrupt the silence and suppress then late night lachrymose. I coaxed myself to sleep until I no longer felt callow and forgave him for never phoning, never seeing if I was okay. I awoke most mornings calling his name, a painful, childish cry that slept in my belly, until I stripped my sheets, started anew, and knew it by rote. I took refuge in books, in women who spoke it better than myself, that had starved without starving and could stifle the lassitude.

I had loved literature more than I had ever loved any man.