Where does the love go?

When you spend moments of your life with someone, when you have integrated yourself into their friendships, family and existence...what happens to the love once shared? What happens to those inexplicable emotions that seem to run so deep that nothing tangible could ever seemingly touch them? Does a love once expressed float on breath to wind to nothing? Does it evolve into something else...like hatred, anxiety and eventually death? When there is no longer any hope of a lingering relationship in any sense of the word...what happens to the love? Does it wait patiently in the belly of your soul...cautious yet so willing for the next bout? Not quite disturbed but infinitely fearful? Can one person keep it alive in a sense that it never really goes anywhere...it still exists, unchanged and grounded in something bigger than oneself? Maybe it never changes...it stagnates in the gut like a putrid festering mess until it no longer resembles anything but decay and disgust, dying with the person holding on to it the most. Or perhaps, it moves as the wind blows...silent and flexible. Always changing, breathing, feeding, but never manifesting longer than a whisper. Maybe it disintegrates to such a degree that one begins again with each new situation...there is no lasting love, only attachment and memories with evidence of what was in a dusty picture book on a forgotten shelf. I have loved. I have witnessed love decompose so untimely that it rarely resembles its former glory. Perhaps I place to much emphasis on it all. Maybe love will never be my savior. Perhaps my sanctity lies in the doing and not the feeling. I wonder though if what i have felt and what I am feeling now will ever allow me to learn. Will i continue to make these absurd errors in judgement that keep me postponing my life and dreams? Does love ever die, or are we so blessed with the ability to remember as well as forget? Time heals all, right? If you love and the person who is lucky enough to receive your heart forsakes it...confuses it so that he or she cannot see what truly matters...what happens to their love? Have they buried it in such a way that it no longer hurts? Some day that will surface. Some day there will be regret. Some day there will be enlightenment and when that day comes...I won't be there. Don't you see how your decisions have made your love leave? Abandonment at a cost. Maybe I have taken love for granted...it is after all a privilege, not a right. I wish more people understood that...we'd all treat each other a hell of a lot better. Will my unreciprocated heart thoughts wait patiently for the next time? Will there even be a next time? Sometimes I think I've used up all my turns and the carny will scream in my face, "You're too tall for this ride!" And I will sulk away, forever alone and trapped in my head with forty-seven kitties to keep me company until I pass away from starvation and the kitties eat my organs...better that than wasting away in some blind kid with kidney failure and a heart murmur. That could be good...right now at least.