The modern age has changed the way love dies. Mankind has discovered a new way to break the human heart, a method so treacherous I tremble in its presence. This new technique guarantees instant death. It’s wickedly simple, over and done with before you can even register its occurrence. One moment your lover is there; the next, gone. Deleted. Removed. Ripped away. Cut out. Erased. Blocked.

They call it “ghosting.” Definition (noun): the act of ending a relationship by cutting off all means of communication with the person. Sample sentence: Ghosting is the leading cause of death of all modern relationships. Also see: being ghosted. Word origin: unknown, but likely popularized in the last ten years, from the word used to define the shadow of fallen soul. Synonyms: emotional hell.

The most terrible aspect of ghosting is that it takes away the very thing human beings need to move on with their lives: closure. Think about it. To be ghosted is to be abandoned without warning. Months or years of security unravelled in a single second. Picture this: you are driving along a road with someone. It stretches out indefinitely under the magnificent rays of the sun. You share laughter, beauty and trust together. But then, all of a sudden, you find yourself stranded along the side of road, alone. You are left shivering under the starless velvet night, with nothing but the question why? faintly echoing off your lips.

Why indeed?

Let’s start at the beginning: love blooms, and love dies in every corner of the world, between any two creatures who wander into her seductive grasp. Ghosting is one of it’s many endings, but it all begins the same way. You are drawn into the music. The song rises and falls to the beat of your heart. There are different harmonies, but the melody is always the same. The music is bewitching, and you hang on to each sacred note. You become spellbound. But then: the decay. For unless you are very lucky, the tune wavers and inevitably drops into the sweet ache of a minor key, filling your soul with melancholy sighs. You sense, with a heavy heart, that the finale is drawing near. In a regular case, a non-ghosting case, you struggle through to the end together. There is no unfinished business. It may be vicious, it may ignite a terrible fire that sweeps across the delicate bridges that you have built together and burn them all to ashes, but, believe me, that is getting off easy. Because at least you have the blackened soot to lay down upon and fill your tender lungs with as they grieve. Ghosting provides no such luxury.

Ghosting is just that- a phantom. There is no corpse to weep over, no body to be prepared and buried into the wet earth, no bones to salt and burn. You are left with nothing.

Ghosting is a heartless thing to do to a person, especially to someone you once loved. The reasons are many: to protect oneself, to avoid uncomfortable situations, to take the easy way out. But just because one person walks out doesn’t mean it ends there. The trauma lives on. It is not humane to leave someone like that. It’s cruel. Everyone deserves a last goodbye, a final salute, an au revoir. Nobody wants to fall asleep to the sound of music and wake up to to the sound of silence. So don’t let love die without laying it to rest. Don’t become someone’s ghost.