There is only one way to really get over
someone who you have been in love with,
and that is to become another person.
This is really the only reason
why people fall out of love with each other.
The fights, and tantrums,
the small and big flaws
(he makes that noise when he chews, he has no ambition)
are never enough to really make you fall out of love.
Feel betrayed, or irritated or angry, yes.
But falling out of love requires
shift of perspective, and thus, shift of desire.
Like looking at an old shirt and thinking,
'God, how could I have ever thought that was cool?"
Sometimes we do it together,
each person growing and changing
till you turn around and look at each other
and know that's it, except for nostalgia.
Sometimes it happens while you are still together,
whether you want it to or not,
and it hurts like hell,
wishing you were still capable
of being that person you used to be,
the one who fell in love,
the one your lover fell in love with.
Sometimes it doesn't happen
till a long, long time afterwards,
and there is still the three-in-the-morning ache,
the in-jokes with their pointed poignancy,
the missing.

We are like jigsaw puzzle pieces
made out of modeling clay,
firm and fixed in our outlines
as long as we fit together,
variable lumps otherwise.
You reshape your edges
and become something new,
a tab where there used to be a hole,
straight where you were once curved,
and everything changes.