Regarding Loss

That tightness in your chest
is your heart
refusing to let go.
The tears in your eyes
are your mind
releasing the pain.
There is no going back,
and life won't wait for you.
Forward is the only way to go.

Lost in the swamp of repressed sorrow
I am no one who can show you the way.

Tenses

There was silence that told me everything important.

There was light when I was lost in my nightmares.

There was warmth when I was frozen.

There were eyes that reflected my favorite self back at me.

There were hands that convinced my body it was beautiful.

There was no homesick, because I was home.

There are days when I almost don't think about it.

There are nights when I forget it's over.

There is emptiness more hollow than ever.

There is never a doubt in my mind that it changed me.

There is hope that this wasn't the end.

There will be another beginning.

I'm Not Lost

I've heard,
because I am young
and I have never been alone,
that I need time to find myself
but I am not lost.

I am in pieces,
scattered about the earth
like broken glass;
I exist in the people I love.

I know who I am.
I am a daughter, and a sister.
I am an aunt, and a friend,
and one day a wife and mother.

I am the people I love,
I love myself because I love them,
and I am empty because they leave me,
and I become more each time I love again.

I am not lost,
I know exactly who I am,
because to love is not to lose yourself in another,
but to find yourself in them.

Teach Me

Teach me to forget

so that I may understand

being forgotten.

Teach me how to leave

so that I may come to see

how so many left.

Teach me to erase

so someday I can remove

the scars absence made.

Teach me to forget,

teach me to leave, to erase,

teach me to be you.

Holes

These people who have left me
have left holes within me.

They tell me more will come.

More friends
            more love
                     more holes.

No one
seems to
understand;
new dirt
cannot fill
old holes
without
making
new ones.

The Tree of Knowledge

I think I know what grew
on the Tree of Knowledge.
We think we are so smart,
so evolved,
with our critical thinking
and our science.
The Tree of Knowledge
provided, of course, knowledge;
but we were warned not to eat the fruit.
The forbidden fruit that grows
on the branches of knowledge
is love.

Now

Love has cursed us.
Yes, love is the light that guides us,
but that light will be extinguished
and the dark that follows
will be the deepest ever seen.
One that is blessed with a life of love
is doomed to a life of loss.
This is what we took upon ourselves
when we tasted that forbidden fruit,
so when you feel that pain of loss
and find yourself lost in the dark
remember you were blessed with love
and remember how it's left you blind.

Then

Remember how sweet the fruit was
how seeing light was worth your sight
and how love is worth the loss.