There is something about the absence of someone after a breakup or the end of a romantic entanglement that is felt so deeply, I don’t understand it. Even in long-distance relationships, the constant comfort of having someone so near to you emotionally leaves a hole inside you. There is a heartwrenching listless feeling that comes, and you wander through the day, half of a person. I feel like every time I love someone, I give them a part of myself. And when things end, I hobble around for a while, missing limbs or an eye, a victim in the long war we call love. The only comfort is that eventually the parts of themselves they gave to me grow over my wounds, and I become a patchwork quilt of my past loves.
— Anaïs Escobar