Missing You
It starts before you’ve left, this missing you. The sense of loss gets into everything Like salt. It makes each moment more intense. I hug you harder, savouring the sense Of having you (dear you) so close to me. It also adds a sharpness to my day That makes me pause and wince, an aftertaste Of sadness as we face our list of “lasts” Before you leave, before I’m left behind To cry salt tears and miss you even more.
Sometimes it’s okay to just be sad. Not to feel the need to tie things up in a neat bow or to force a happy ending, but just to sit with the sadness. I’m not very good at doing that—I’d much rather numb and distract myself. Similarly, it’s tempting to concoct a neat and tidy takeaway point following this poem, but I’m not going to provide one, because the takeaway point is that there doesn’t have to be a takeaway point, that some things should just be felt, not sermonised upon. Felt, not fixed. It’s okay to be sad.