Perhaps I don’t know what this is, only what it is not.
I only feel the absence of things;
I am hollowed out, a bell, so if you struck me, sound would reverberate around the empty space within, made of what you’ve taken from me —
and yet that space is also filled with love that could never be taken,
that has never left.
Let me tell you what this is not —
this is not because I disappear,
not the fluctuations of heart,
not the wild death impulse, nor the wild life in me
(not that I am not a part in this play),
but this is not the absence of love,
not the absence of shared purpose,
not the lack of superhuman courage —
so what is it?
Not the planet spinning,
not the absence of patience,
not the passing of a season,
not the migration of birds,
not my hurting (though I am hurt that you can’t love my pain and beauty as inseparable),
not the cuts (from where you’ve tried to shape me into something more palatable),
not the wanting you to change (for I have only tried to call you into who you truly are).
So what is it?
You know.
And it has made us not.
Not together, not growing, not dreaming, no more.
So I let go of all hope, for hope would be hope of the wrong thing.
I will let go of you, because you’ve told me to.
But I will not, could not, let go of love.
Love is.
And in the end, when all that it’s not has been licked clean, you’ll see and know too —
That’s what it was all along.
