I understand loss

I understand loss like a dream. Barely. I imagine loss heartily.

I am a woman for crying out loud. I lost my virginity; I lost my mind; I lost my boyfriend; I lost my temper; I lost my phone a couple of times; I lost my friend. There were several moments I flung myself onto the bed and believed I had lost everything, and I stared at myself in the mirror and cried because then you know what it looks like to lose and it feels cinematic, so it feels real.

Loss has a place in the gut, a static sensation, where butterflies used to be. It’s the feeling of electricity in the night when you’re awake. This is the time when you understand that there is a land of nod. In the depth of their longing, a human who is not an insomniac escapes. They are taken, muscles loose, eyes beyond like seers. Elevated. Here is an idea: Aliens take you in your sleep and talk to your subconscious. 

If I had not lost sleep I would not understand its magic.

In sleep we trust, despite everything we have lost, that there is someone who will take care of us.

But sticking my nose into the book I smell him, that body home smell. A cigarette burns in your room in the morning. I imagine that he is here and I wrap my mind around him, hoping he can feel my embrace. He has lost more than I have, my friend. And maybe that’s the tragedy, that men have lost just as much as women, but they can’t look at the emptiness. Women exist in the vat of loss every day, constantly apologizing for it, and the both need healing.