It starts with an uncomfortable knot in your stomach. Slowly it tightens and expands until your entire chest is a solid rock.

There's a phantom feeling there, as if you had your right arm cut off but can still feel it. "It can't be gone," you tell yourself, "it can't be."

You wake up the next morning and it still feels like it's there. But it's not.

Soon, a burning sensation sets in. It's a distasteful feeling and you long to throw the burn out of you. You lash out at anything you see, trying to rid yourself of the fire inside.

This doesn't work, of course. The fire is too deep, too rooted. And soon, it consumes you as well.

Then one day, you wake up and think, "Maybe I can repair things and get it back again." You can talk it out and fix everything, you think to yourself.

"I'll be better this time," you say, "I'll be a different person."

The reasoning doesn't work though. It ends up being hollow words in a dead tree.

Then the coldness washes over you. You slow down and begin to see less color around you. Nothing seems to matter as much anymore: the knot, the fire, the desire to repair, nothing.

This chill seems to overpower the other feelings. So you embrace it, letting it freeze those other pains.

Over time, the coldness subsides. As does the knot and the fire and the desire to repair things before it.

As the tide, it ebbs back into the vast ocean, and you're able to look out and enjoy the horizon yet again.

But until that happens, damn that knot is sure tight.

. . .

How do you feel when you've had a break-up?