breakups

Breakups are full of shit. No, I didn't break up with anyone, but this poem...this poem! It brings to mind all the shit that happens after a breakup, that lonely, hollow feeling that doesn't go away for a long, long time, no matter what you tell yourself.

Most of us have gone through breakups, unrequited loves, all doomed to turn us into cynics one way or another. So I won't elaborate. I like this poem because it instantly connects me to the writer and the feeling the writer must be feeling. So thanks Sir Ian, for the beautiful, sad words that make me want to reach out and watch from afar at the same time. Thank you for sharing the humanity that connects us all.

For Absence

By Ian Rosales Casocot
For Mark

How an amputee must feel like: a swell
Of loneliness in the sudden absence of things
In the ordinary. Like air, like limbs, like love
Vastly remembered only because they’re ghosts.

But I breathe still, and I am able to walk. Tell me
Instead how to keep full this empty, sudden knowledge
Of distance. Between moments and motions, I catch
Myself grieving for the secret loss.

We can chart this phantom geography: there will
Always be goodbyes, just as much as death comes
For everything. Winds wilt, flowers die down, lovers
Embrace away to pursue songs in other shores.

This morning, where I stood to catch the last glimpse
Of the bus that took you away, the street asphalt
Turned greyer where my shadows fell. Later, going
Home, even the silence obeyed and embraced parting.

I tell myself that tonight I will break inner ground
Scavenging through the depths without tears.
Here is coffee, here is paper. I will wake through
The evening quiet to exhaust in words what I miss.

In the morning, when the dull ache will be dimmer,
My prayer is to wake to you, your side of bed still full.

In the end, we all still believe in fairy tales.

*emphasis mine