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What happens when Love leaves? By- Champa Bilwakesh Champa Bilwakesh lives in Andover, MA with her husband and they have two children. Her first published short story titled 'Swallowing Priya' won second place in a fiction contest sponsored jointly by the Asian American Pacific Journal and India Currents and was published in 1997. Her other published works of fiction include The Party in Monsoon Magazine and Water Therapy, which won the India Currents Katha contest, 1999 and was published in the June 1999 issue. As a freelance writer for the Andover Townsman she has published several stories personal essays. She has been admitted to the writing program at Warren Wilson where she plans to pursue her MFA.

What happens when Love leaves?
When it folds up, dusts off, and walks away?
Do you wither and die?
Wither a little, die a little?
Maybe wither but not die.

Does it hurt when Love leaves?
As if your skin was ripped off.
Your tenderest part that you gave for safe-keeping
lost carelessly.
Or carefully.

You pick up one by one.
Slowly, gently you place the pieces
end to end.
And measure.
You gather some from other places:
corners and crevices where Love clings,
in awkward ways, in surprising traces.
You shape them in new ways to fit vacant spaces.
That’s what happens when Love leaves.

What happens to the place that Love left?
That’s when you fear.
Because hate looms at Love’s edges.
It bores in and works its way
to fill every crease and hollow space.
Virulant, it erodes.

And then you remember.
When Love was with you, its taste, its aura.
You may even wonder if it was?
Yes it was, it always was.
It is.
Love, life-blood.
You remember carefully how it moved slowly
like oil warmed in familiar hands.
Love waits.

Oh Love! It blooms
from one small, secret place.
A jasmine in the darkest night.
Like the memory of a certain kiss,
like sweet maple in cold tree limbs,
its fragrance,
endures.

Raj Shekar comments :

Excellent!
'Inspired' a response CB
Regards

Enmeshed
in the lie
of falsified faith
Squeezed by the wrenching
......of a twisted ripped trust
the termites of doubt
'gnaw' hollow
the walls of 'sanctuary'
crumbled
a 'ruin'
where love dwelt

and

the tidal anger of hate
pours in through the breach
destructive
in its raging
and all is/appears lost
to the threshing...
waves of depression
an eternal sea
in turmoil

but then
there is self-respect and hope

a mother that cleanses
the raw gashes
rebuilds...
wipes the slate
freshens
a bouquet of 'oppourtunity'
flowering......
perhaps seeding
a fertile new Eden....

hope/self respect
is the key
IF
it is..
allowed
to survive

for

to kill it
is in
your hands
and your choice
to be a victim.....