I was born when you kissed me. I died when you left me. I lived a few weeks while you loved me.

The line compresses an entire emotional life into the arc of a brief romance: “born” at the first reciprocated intimacy, “dead” at abandonment, and “alive” only during the period of being loved. Its melodramatic metaphors treat love not as an addition to life but as life’s sole animating force, implying that identity and vitality depend on the beloved’s presence. The stark time scale (“a few weeks”) heightens the sense of fragility and disposability, suggesting a relationship intense enough to redefine existence yet too short to sustain it. As a quotation, it endures because it dramatizes heartbreak in absolute terms—an extreme but recognizable way of describing how love can make ordinary time feel like a whole lifetime.