It Hurts Because You Love

by Raymund Tamayo

It hurts because you love. If there's no love, you wouldn't feel a thing.

As long as there is love, there will be pain. The pain of time passing, of life moving on, of empty spaces once bursting with the laughter and energy of people we loved.

As long as there is love there is pain because pain tells us how much we love someone or something.

It shows up in corridors we once frequented, in the memories of familiar smiles, in the whiff of cologne we get years after they've been gone.

Pain is a giant neon sign telling loudly, "Love was here." But, in the finer print, quietly it says, "Love still is."