Puzzle of Loss

It feels like I’ve been punched in the gut, I want to double over and gasp for air.

But in my painful, stunned despair, 

I’m stiff and frozen in horror, all I can do is tremble and stare. 

It lasts briefly before I feel my heart beating fast. 

As my heart rises to counter it, my brain says over and over, “It doesn’t matter, it’s in the past.”

I was numb for only a few minutes, but what felt like an eternity ends at last. 

I grab nothing, as feeling returns, I storm out. 

I walk quickly as I can to a friend’s house, for there I doubt

Drowning myself in alcohol, flooding my blood with drugs or eating my gun I could bring myself about

It isn’t fifteen minutes after I arrive, into tears I collapse

And back to alcohol, pills and tobacco I relapse

But if it’s keeping me alive, the best thing it is I can do for myself, perhaps? 

I lay in the bed, but I cannot sleep

I roll, thrash and squirm, my legs, chest and head hurt, my soul’s been cut deep

I deserve it, I laugh in joy, it still hurts, I weep

I should be in misery for what I did, so I won’t even try to fight

As every memory from my heart takes a bite

Force that bag over my head and shove me away from the sun and into eternal night

I sleep as much as I can so I don’t have to think

So I don’t have to see her face as she gave me a smile and wink

Just for me to stab her in the back and push her hard towards the brink

I thank God she stood up for herself and pushed back

I thank God she saved her own color by showing me my black

I thank God she saved what she had by showing me what I lack

It’s been a perfect day, I’ve been smiling for hours, to the sidewalk I throw my Coke

As the never ending puzzle I cannot escape comes back, how her I broke 

God, crush these memories, make thoughts of her nothing provoke!

I want to actually escape and stop just from away run

Everything I’ve done

Of her, feelings and memories, I want none.

It doesn’t hurt that I lost her anymore

It doesn’t make me crawl for more beer or pills on the floor

Because of my loss, my thumb I no longer gore. 

But one thing does still burn my heart, is still to my soul and mind blistery

But it is not the emotional devastation or loss or losing her after our history

It is not knowing what I did to lose her, the quiz, the confusion, the void, the puzzle, the mystery.