This is not just a momentary love

Some days, love is cutting open your thoracic cavity and making that big old machine stop beating or praying death reaches that dying cat sooner, the one who couldn’t be saved

or wanting to pluck your eyes from their sockets so you won’t have to see,

all the exposed viscera of the man, lying in the rubble somewhere far from here or the dog, whose body’s rotting in the mud.

God,

why isn’t there a single word for love and death alone, or for love and pain?

Why, to love, must I be all I can be? I want to be cruel to myself,

I wanna throw myself in the fire, I wanna inject my blood with neon, and turn into dust.

Love is the dream of drowning on the way to meet your sick friend. Love is – love is to disappear before everybody else.

Love is me silencing my junctional rhythm and feeling its nothingness.

Afra Ibnat Portia is a freshman majoring in Biotechnology at the Department of Mathematics and Natural Sciences. She spends most of her time contemplating existence than studying actual science. When she’s not lost in thought, she obsesses over Han Kang.