step one: you begin by dismantling their name like a machine, unscrewing each syllable until the sound no longer startles you.

you roll it around in your mouth until it tastes like dust instead of devotion. you refer to them in past tense, he used to, she once was, as if grammar alone could trick your heart into forgetting chronology.

step two: you retire from your acting and the theatre. stop scripting imaginary conversations in the shower, stop refreshing a glowing screen in the blue hours between midnight and morning. you delete the half-written messages that hang like ghosts in your drafts folder.

step three: you start telling the story differently. at first, it’s only revision: we becomes I, and love becomes learned.

you stop painting them as the villain or the saint and finally see them for what they were. you don’t flinch when someone says their name, because it no longer feels like an invocation. it’s just a word now, like purple, or tuesday.

step four: one morning, you’ll wake up and the first thought won’t be them.

you don’t reach for your phone for them. you don’t think to check. you’ll check the weather instead, stretch, sip your coffee, and when their face drifts across your mind like a shooting star, you’ll smile, not because you miss them, but because, finally, you don’t.

and finally, the last step. step five: you will start writing again, but not about them. your words stretch in new directions, toward rainbows, laughter, grocery lists, songs you’ve never shared. your voice changes. you do too. and somewhere between sentences, you realize you’ve become someone they wouldn’t even recognize.

you will still see them, of course. they will appear in the most inconvenient places: in the gold reflection of a subway window, in the melody of a song you thought was harmless, in the faint smell of their cologne clinging to your winter scarf from last christmas. when they visit your senses, do not wage war. simply nod, as if greeting an old neighbor across the street. do not invite them in.

eventually, you stop romanticizing the ruin. you stop turning the pain into performance, the loss into myth. this is not Rome burning. this is just the domestic tragedy of washing dishes, of brushing your teeth, of remembering to breathe.

and finally, you do not kill the love. you place it down gently, like a bouquet left at a grave.