There are times

When I feel as though

I’ve lost something

Of incredible value

As though

I was holding it

In my hands

But

It slipped through my fingers

And fell into the river below

Gone forever,  swept away

Just the echo of a voice once heard

Just the feel of a treasure once held

Like phantom pains in a limb cut off

No longer there…

Sometimes

I dream of going back in the past

And pulling myself away

from the water’s edge

That’s what loss feels like

It never goes away

It’s an absence

Where once was a presence

And in the shadows

You forget voices

You forget faces

And you think you’ve gone mad

Wondering if

you made the whole beautiful thing up

That there was never anything precious

Only empty hands

Dreaming.