LOST THINGS

Photo by Its Adonis on Unsplash

I lost a lot of things along with you:

1. my sanity – you made me question everything. every thought, every word

that (n)ever left my lips. every moment I missed waiting for your permission.

2. my sense of gravity – you were my center, my core, my tether.

without you, I am floating aimlessly, at the mercy of the tempest.

3. my spark – you ignited a fire in my soul and swallowed the flames whole.

you left me empty and cold, aching for warmth.

4. my heart – its wholeness. it was priceless and irreplaceable.

and, before you came along, I thought it was unbreakable. oh, how naïve of me.

5. my ability to sleep – I spend my nights tossing and turning and wondering

how I could possibly still be hurting this much. all the sleep in the world

won’t be enough to put my soul at ease. you stole that from me.

6. my creativity – I used to be able to write any and everything on my mind

with no holds barred. but you made it impossible to speak freely and truly,

not without admitting what you did and who you are.

but the amount of things I gained

now that you’re gone are worth much more:

1. my desire for growth – without you, I’ve nowhere else to grow but up.

2. my lust for life – after years of crawling through the desert on

my hands and knees, I inhale it greedily. without you, I find that I’m so thirsty.

3. my appetite – I’m so hungry for healing. the feeling of fractured bones

mending, an infection burning off, a fever breaking. without you around

to repress my yearning, I’m finally craving the curing.

4. my capacity to love – now that I’m no longer wasting it all on you,

I find that my reserves are vast and infinite, and I have more than

enough to heal myself with. I should’ve started there in the first place.

5. my freedom – with my heart no longer your hostage, finally out of reach

from your caustic touch, I find that I’m capable of so much more than I ever dreamed of.

with it, I have the strength to reclaim all those things you took with you, to rediscover

parts of myself I never really knew. with it, I’ll learn how to love myself

better than I ever loved you.

You can check out "Lost Things" and more poems in my chapbook BONE WEAVING, available now on Amazon. Order the paperback here.

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