Living With Her Emptiness

Often, it the places we once were,

certain dates in the calendar,

a song, a words I hear, a familiar smell,

Sometimes so small,

and all the pain returns,

like it had no place to go.

I wish I had a switch

I could turn off

So forget her for a while.

But the truth is

she is never away from my thoughts

not even for a millisecond.

I have learned to live

without the version of life

I once wanted to live with her.

In this enormous world,

she came into life,

stayed for a while

and touched some parts

I never knew existed.

And when she left

She left something of her behind,

a permanent mark on my heart,

that neither I nor time

could completely erase it.

Life keeps moving forward,

But sometimes my mind stays behind.

I see her in places she has never been.

I hear songs she never sang.

I remember her

In moments that have nothing to do with her.

I feel like a ghost of her

is seated on my shoulders.

And then, one night

I looked up at the sky.

The moon looks beautiful,

But somehow I see her in it.

And maybe that is what she is to me now

like the moon, still beautiful,

but too far away for me to hold.

Not by asking her to come back,

Not trying to reach her,

but by admiring her from a distance

and being grateful that once

she was close enough to become a part of me.

By

Sanji-Paul Arvind