Lately I have been losing people
All over the place.
I lost my best friend’s arms in Dhaka.
They never held me again
To sooth away sorrows
I could not always explain.
I lost my mother’s smile
When she sat on an airplane
And returned home without me.
I lost my friends’ laughter
Still echoing somewhere in that one bedroom apartment.
I lost the twinkle of my sister’s eye
When she moved away to California.
I lost a piece of myself somewhere between Virginia and Florida.
I can tell it was important,
But it’s gone now,
Replaced by something far less valuable.
Lately loss feels heavier than love.
Both of them are four letter words,
So how can one weigh more than the other?
I still don’t understand.
Love feels transitory,
Loss feels like home,
Like it’s somewhere I have always known.
Loss is one place I can always come back to
I can’t say that about love.
Lately I have been losing people
Like puzzle pieces.
As if, I remember the exact way
My best fried called my name.
But I have forgotten the sound of his voice.
I remember his childhood face,
But I have lost how he looked right before he died.
I have lost all the tears I have cried in Texas,
But I found peace in friendship.
If only I could put the puzzle together,
It would all make sense.
But the lost pieces never come back.
Lately I am tired of grasping
Pieces of people I have lost.
They are gone;
They won’t ever come back.
Why can’t I let go?
Don’t I know broken pieces always cut?
The jagged pieces of people are scarring me.
Lately I wonder, if I want it to hurt.
Why do I think I deserve to be wounded
For all the people I have ever loved and lost?
Amar Shobdo 