The Twist of Losing You

by Once an Angel   Feb 3, 2020


I lost you.
You threw a dagger at my heart
as you turned your back on me,
accusing me of doing the same.
Except I’m the one still standing here,
gazing at your retreating back.
Decades lost,
because I wasn’t who you wanted,
who you planned me to be.
This me who the mirror reflects back,
there is not room for her in your world.
An eternal bond severed,
where undying love was meant to be.

Others rushed to me,
a gift and blessing I had in them.
Emergency healing,
to keep this heart wound from ending me.
The blade had to stay though,
too dangerous to remove.
Wounds are strange that way.
To survive I must carry it
until the end of days.

In the agony of healing,
I am entranced by my mirror,
trying to see if I could mold me
one last time,
to be that woman for you.
I cannot.
It’s a weight I bear forever,
this permanent failure to you.
The cost of molding,
as clumsy as it was,
is a deficit I cannot pay,
with no more currency to do it again.

It’s strange, this wound,
a dagger forever in my heart.
It gives you power I did not imagine,
when pain first stole breath from my lungs,
to twist the knife again and again,
complete healing never to be done.

I’ll adapt I supposed,
as we humans are adept to do,
adapt and keep moving,
keep managing the twisting,
that will not have an end.
It’s the twist,
the twist of loving,
and the twist
of losing you.

    report violation
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Latest Comments

  • 4 years ago

    by Poet on the Piano

    Glad to see Brenda nominated this, I was about to if she hadn't.

    This is an incredible poem in its honesty and weight of the wounds that stay with us for so long. The wounds we try and try to heal, the way they can mark us and emotionally follow us.

    "The blade had to stay though,
    too dangerous to remove.
    Wounds are strange that way.
    To survive I must carry it
    until the end of days. "

    - These lines were so powerful.

    This whole poem read as a battle between yourself and losing this person, still trying one last time to be "enough" of a woman, when I feel like in some people's eyes, we can never measure up because we aim to be ourselves and they will never be satisfied with our truth.

    Your voice carries through this - in the healing and understanding and living with this wound, the "adapting".

    Thanks so much for sharing this with us <3

  • 4 years ago

    by Brenda

    I feel this strongly. It's tough at first not to be affected when he yanks your strings. It won't be like that forever, take solace in that.

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