On Loss
We’re always losing something.
Seconds, days take some french exit.
Time quietly shuffles out the back door.
Doesn’t even say goodbye.
Once we realize
our moments are gone,
we want them back. Maybe we can replay
them and take a second look, but the record skips and the tape jumps
and the film is splotched and some teenager spilt
wine all over the keyboard
long ago;
So we jump
from memory to memory like patchwork
realizing we don’t even remember the important things.
We don’t even know why we thought what we thought.
We can’t even explain ourselves to ourselves.
Our consciousness can’t muddle through it’s own muck;
our mind doesn’t even know how the mind works.
It’s not just an existential crisis.
We lose the small things, too. We lose cellphones.
Wallets. Innocence. Virtue. We pass some
tests, we fail some tests, we replace and are replaced
we stop loving and are no longer loved,
but eventually, bigger things. Friends. Family. Lovers.
Ourselves. Our potential.
Eventually, we slip away from the most important thing.
I’ve heard a bit about death. It’s a lot like sleep. You don’t even know it’s happening.
It’s a lot like
slipping into the unconscious;
it’s a lot like putting your head down; you don’t thrash about. You see the holy gates,
maybe. Maybe you’re pulled from your body
like a handkerchief. Maybe you don’t lose anything;
maybe you get found.
If this is melancholy, I’m sorry. I’m allowed to be melancholy. Likewise, you’re are allowed to be melancholy.
You are allowed to question-
you are allowed to dance, sing, shout, cry
know, love, forget;
You are allowed to lose. You are allowed to remember. What’s stopping you?
Who’s holding you back? No floodgates; you aren’t a flood.
There’s no sweeping metaphor; no sweeping generalization. You aren’t
a path, you aren’t constrained, chained bound or gagged;
confess if you must;
drink wine if you have too;
do some metaphysical exercise; transport your mind to some realm
explode, manifest, conquer,
Prepare to lose it all. Or let it happen. It’s a choice.
If I could, I’d help you through your heartbreak. Guide you through
it all,
make you smile. Make you happy.
But I keep losing things.
I keep playing all the songs I used to enjoy.
I keep reading all the things that used to make me happy.
Moments come and go, hours gently float away
Night will wash the palate clean, clear-coat the day;
I will love, and I will hate;
I will sing, and I will dance
I will grieve, and celebrate
I will shout, and by some chance,
I cease to be.
I will not be me.
I will go somewhere;
a dark room.
Somewhere where I am safe.
Nowhere at all.
Somewhere, sometime, somehow, a vauge
mirror you cannot avoid
