Loss was found
You would have thought with something missing,
things would feel lighter.
I mean, yes, I lost weight,
But I had more on my mind.
You would never have seen me leaving my house
without my headphones on.
Because I knew only music could drown out
the wind whispering your name.
And I didn’t want to hear it.
In every 'how have you been?' and 'how is everything going?',
I experimented with how far I could stretch my answer from reality.
I didn’t want to say my time was being taken up attending
the same funeral of us, a hundred times a day.
That I was and still was the only visitor.
I kept people at a distance,
I didn’t want anyone too close.
Because I didn’t want people to catch
the smell of death from my clothes.
There were two of us but only one was mourning.
Each morning, I awoke in a cemetery,
trying to bury all of the 'what ifs' under the surface.
But every tear I shed watered the dead.
into full bloom and more grief resurfaced.
So I tried sowing new seeds. I really did.
Wishing for a new garden to grow.
I would stand there weeping into my watering can.
But I realised my watering can can’t
grow miracles, though.
I thought I could gain muscle trying to bench my thoughts.
But the only thing I strengthened was my muscle memory.
I could lift ten extra kilograms at the gym much easier.
Because nothing was heavier than my thoughts.
To lighten my load I was told to focus on myself so
I would race laps in the park every day by myself.
And I would still come second.
I was doing everything I could,
But I could never outrun my grief.
And it brought me no relief to see
The seesaw we used to play on and so perfectly balance.
I should have known you were leaving forever
because your absence nailed my side so far into the ground.
I was so low I could only look upwards.
You were so high, you didn’t look down.
Or once, when you did, you couldn’t hide your smile from the sky.
I didn’t need to be reminded that you were doing better without me.
So I unsynced our pictures from the cloud.
But it still rained and it poured.
I stopped using umbrellas because
the rain followed me closer
than my own shadow did.
So I unfollowed joy and love on social media.
I would scroll past happiness and delight.
I would double tap on sorrow
I would refresh but be stuck on
the same loading screen every night.
And I’m silly in that I would fall asleep
watching it load only to wake up to
“page still not found”.
You would think with something missing,
things would feel lighter.
I mean, yes, I lost weight.
But I had more on my mind.
Watch Kavita’s reading here.