Eurudice

Ela thinks love is a form of gangrene that settles in silently, moves fast like a bacillus loose in the blood and takes over one's entire body, causing excruciating agony or insanity. A while later the pain stops, and soon after death comes. An unmistakable putrid smell signals love's nasty presence.

...

Love blinds people to their blemishes and violences, and to the inadequacy of the world. It chains them to their fantasies of others. It breeds sacrifice, stagnation, suffering, humiliation, Ela has observed.

...

Love is perishable: every love plays out and in times becomes meaningless. Why must I watch the reruns? Ela wonders.

(Eurudice, "F/32", pp. 25, 29, 30)