Do You Believe In Life After Love?

You ask me —

“Do you believe in life after love?”

as if love was a fire exit

and heartbreak,

just the fire alarm 

we punch in the throat, on out way out.

But love doesn’t end like that.

It doesn’t slam the door.

It seeps into the walls,

crawls into your coffee mug,

and waits in the silence

between your name

and the one they call next.

You don't walk out of love.

You rot in it

like wet wood 

pretending it's still a home.

Life after love

isn’t life —

it’s performance art for an audience of regrets.

It’s waking up

next to someone else’s peace

and missing your own war.

They tell you

healing happens with time —

but time doesn't heal,

it just teaches you how to limp better.

You don’t stop bleeding.

You just learn to wear darker shirts to match the bandages.

And no,

I don’t believe in life after love —

because what they call “life”

is mostly just muscle memory management.

Deleting call logs,

burning old playlists,

pretending the ghost in your bed

isn’t whispering the same name you swore you forgot.

Love doesn’t die.

It gentrifies.

Moves into another part of your body,

starts charging rent,

and makes you think the ache is part of growing up.

You try loving again —

but all you’re really doing

is learning how to bleed cleaner.

The truth is,

love never leaves.

It just turns into poetry

because that’s the only language

where hurt is allowed to stay beautiful.

And if you call this “life,”

then yes —

maybe I do believe in life after love.

Not because I survived it,

but because I wrote through it.

Because the pen remembers

what the heart can’t carry.

And maybe,

that’s the only resurrection we get —

not in flesh,

but in metaphor.

So ask me again: Do I believe in life after love?

No.

But I believe

in verses written

in the blood left behind.

And sometimes,

that’s more immortal

than love ever was.