Loulwa El Hariri | Staff Writer

There is a type of love that doesn’t receive a response, and yet, within its absence, a mystery of a paradox emerges: a love that fights to exist in the trenches of unreciprocating. It’s an emotional experience that goes beyond those of romantic fairytales, leaving the lover in a state of yearning, with no way to set themselves free of their own emotions. And in the silence of such rejected love, a question arises—not just about pain, but about love itself: Is it only real when it is returned, or can it survive, quietly enduring, with no one else to hold it?

In the very root of unrequited love lies the famous issue of what love actually means. In its purest and most elusive form, love is often described as the invisible string that eternally ties two souls together. No matter the distance, no matter the time or the walls that rise between them, the string pulls—relentlessly—drawing them back to each other with a force nothing, absolutely nothing, can sever. But what happens when this ideal is shattered? What happens when that string is tugged on one side only? What happens when it no longer connects, but clings? The string, once a symbol of mutual fate, becomes a tether to something that no longer pulls back. Instead of binding two souls, it begins to unravel, exposing the painful truth: some strings are imagined, spun not between hearts, but within one aching mind.

Love is like a puzzle, with each piece representing a delicate and vulnerable part of the lovers’ hearts, carefully placed by the two souls who have faith in the beauty of what they’re creating. But when love isn’t reciprocated, one side of the puzzle crumbles, and the pieces no longer fit—what was once a flawless image is now torn apart, incomplete, with fragments dispersed and a connection impossible to fix.

The one who struggles with unrequited love dwells in agonizing loneliness, emptying their heart into an unspoken devotion where the one they yearn for will never see or feel the same. And nevertheless, in the silence of their ongoing loss and suffering, love endures—unseen, unappreciated, but unwavering. But regardless of how strong this love is, there’s a type of resentment that flourishes in this field of ungratefulness. Resentment poisons slowly; it begins as hope, hope that they’ll change, that they’ll become the desired person, but they never do. This hope turns into frustration and disappointment. Every setback feeds the growing animosity in the admirer’s heart. Slowly, the lover starts resenting the beloved for not changing, and eventually, they resent themselves for believing in something that was never going to happen.

The lover stands in front of an empty canvas, frozen and unable to move the brush, in desperate hopes of capturing an accurate representation of the one they love. But, how could one paint a face that always turns away, a presence that only exists in the heart’s eye and never tethered to form? The one who loves at first begins painting from pure memory, with every single brushstroke acting as a symbol of commitment and every single shade representing their own longing.

However, memories are deceiving and always misleading. As time passes, the strongest shades and tints of the portrait start diminishing like fading ink. The details the one who loves thought they knew so well—carefully painted with confidence—were, in truth, false and entirely self-invented. The painting eventually starts shifting from a resemblance to a self-portrait, wiping away the illusion to uncover a figure born not from reality, but from the admirer’s deepest yearning.

In time, the lover begins to notice the cracks—what once felt certain now seems distant, every expression born not from memory, but from longing. It is not the beloved who appears on the canvas, but the version the lover longed for them to be. At this point, there’s no inspiration to fuel the continuation of the portrait; the beloved is indifferent and unaware, so the painting remains incomplete for a while and the lover waits for any sign to paint again.

Days go by when the lover decides to return back to their first position, in front of the canvas, but this time, the painting is half-done; and yet, all the drawn parts are blurry. They try to repaint some expressions, but nothing produces a good enough outcome. Now the painter is left standing, frozen and unable to move the brush again, with a messy and undone painting that’s not even a portrait anymore, but just colors layered in desperation and hopelessness. The beloved has turned into a spirit in paint, a soul existing only in the mind. There’s no beloved anymore, only the lover’s sorrow remains staining the canvas.

At last, a choice is made—the one their heart had feared from the very beginning. They ultimately wipe the canvas clean from the despair and yearning that were once masked by acts of love and devotion. A face that never looks in the direction of the artist cannot be drawn, and a soul that never reciprocates or feels the same can never belong to someone. It can only be grieved over while their body still functions.

And so, the aching heart stands before the empty canvas, abandoning the brush and the burden of unrequited love along with it. The real masterpiece of this canvas is its emptiness, a space more vibrant than any tint or color and a silence representing the truest act of love: self-love.