Loss

The loss of anything we are attached to (or identify with) can be painful. But the loss of a loved one through death (or even a break up) can be devastating. Mental pain becomes physical pain as we struggle to cope with our reality. Living our daily life, we nurture this tremendous burden of loss, that becomes a black hole gnawing away at our centre. We learn to live with its inconsistent pulls, twinges and aches; with time. The expression 'time is a great healer' sums up this process of acceptance. It is very difficult to comprehend the extent of this emotional upheaval, unless you have experienced it firsthand. But the internal process of such immediate pain and struggle, brings about surprising positive change in your life too. Sudden change is hard, but it accelerates personal growth.

As a poet I try to empathise and relate to the full spectrum of human emotion, and such compassion and understanding translates into my writing. For me, writing poetry is a creative release of emotional energy. I stumbled across, 'Christopher Reid' who wrote 'A Scattering'. This collection of poems describes his personal journey and agony, during and after his wife's battle with cancer. It is a tribute to her bravery and courage. One of his poems that I found particularly touching:

Soul

Never having known an emptiness so heavy,
I am inclined to call it my new-born soul,
though its state may be less an achieved birth than a pregnancy
lodged oddly, for lack of a womb, in a tight gap
behind the sternum, mid-thorax, not far from my heart.

Coddled there, it's needy, an energy-eater.
It kicks, or thumps, hollowly, and I come to a standstill,
breathless, my whole internal economy primed
to attend without delay to its nursing and nourishment:
memories, sorrows, remorses are what it feeds on.


Luckily, I have no shortage of these to give it,
so that it can continue its murky labours,
quintessential upheavals, noxious bubblings
at the bottom of a flask, as it strives to distil pure tears.


I wrote the following a few months previously:


Loss
Unimaginable
Incomprehensible
A star ripped out of its sky
A life turned on its head
Reality fragments into the tiniest of pieces
The grief so raw and fatal
Go on or die
No one will notice your breath
Silently ebbing away