Dear Ex Qartulad Today

Dear ex — I don’t want you back. But I want you to know: I finally understand what you meant when you said, "ქართულად ლაპარაკი გული მტკივა" — speaking Georgian makes my heart hurt.

Because some loves are like that. You don’t speak them — they speak through you. And even after the person leaves, the language stays. A ghost grammar. A motherland with no return visa.

Do you remember how you tried to teach me Georgian? "როგორ ხარ?" — How are you? "მიყვარხარ" — I love you (but literally: “You are whom I love” — the subject hiding, the object coming first, as if love always puts the other ahead). dear ex qartulad

So I’m writing this letter in the language you spoke in your sleep. The language your grandmother used when she cursed and blessed in the same breath. The language that holds three words for “morning” depending on how light touches the mountains.

Here’s a short, emotional blog post titled — written in English but infused with Georgian phrasing and sentiment. Dear Ex, qartulad I never thought I’d write to you again. But tonight, Tbilisi is wrapped in that familiar fog, and the lights on Mtatsminda blink like unspoken words. So here I am — speaking to you qartulad . Dear ex — I don’t want you back

You are gone. But qartulad , you still exist in every declension of my memory. In the wine-dark evenings. In the toast to the dead that comes before the toast to the living. In the way I cross myself passing a church, even though I stopped believing.

ნახვამდის, ჩემო კარგო. Until I see you again, my good one. You don’t speak them — they speak through you

Qartulad means: I don’t just miss you. I feel your absence in the grammar of my days. Every morning without you is a sentence without a verb. Every night, a story left unfinished.