loss – Page 2 – nathanael.ink

August 25, 2023

i have this reoccurring dream
that judah is still alive and all of us
in his inner circle of friends
know well he is alive and we try to respect his decision to fake his own death
and then, in the dream, i find out he really has died
maybe a car accident or something usual
or i run into him in a grocery store or something
and he nervously says hi and gives me the deepest and most sincere stare i’ve seen and I know he’s requesting that I not tell anyone he’s alive
but then, like I said, I always find out later he died. like actually died
and when i find out i always think i wasted what time i had left with him
it’s as if even if he was still alive
what exactly do i think i would do so differently?
i’m not sure.. and i’d say i hate the dream except that the beginning of it always feels so nice..

Blog

death, friendship, loss
August 24, 2023

his name on the lease
where she takes me in
she takes the same steps
to get to it

i’m guessing my keys
used to be his

and even in my bed
his name slips

she wishes
she never… though

his name on the lease
& their anniversary is the wi-fi password
and she wants to move to Portland
and she wonders why she hates it here
where I am

& I watched his name renew
on their anniversary
on the new lease
in the city
where I live

and she hates it here
she says

Poetry

grief, loss, love, poem, poetry

July 16, 2023

some people i love are dead

some people i love are dead
i recall
just when i begin to hate my experience
my experience of lethargy
of apathy
of a cold cool depressive state
where i look through all of my belongings
and find nothing 

as some people i love are dead
so for them
there is no experience
none at all to wish they were not in
none to long for 
none even to recall

for me, at least, i think
i prefer this to that
i would rather crawl into a slow ball completely spent 
i would rather wring my hands in longing for
the faith i used to have
i would rather use all of my attention to ensure i am taking at least one more 
(and one more)
than not breathe at all
than give it all
than lose any possible chance to see again
someone that i love
and feel loved again 
by them

Poetry

death, depression, faith, friendship, grief, loss, love, meaning, poem, poetry

June 14, 2023

good for

“I don’t have to make you happy”
it starts

and every thought since then has been
“why not”

and every thought since then has been
a tiny drop

a tiny drop on the well established order of
“I could never make anyone happy”
& “I am good for nothing”

I do not know how these became the standard model
(that is not my business)

but doctrines of complete depravity
I do not think helped

“I don’t have to make you happy”
it says

& “no one is asking you to”
replies

& what this respondent does not know
is that I already know no one
is asking for
me to do

anything
for them

as I said, they are already certain
I am good for nothing.

Blog, Poetry

christianity, depression, faith, god, grief, loss, meaning, poem, poetry, theology
May 10, 2023

my reasons to live expire
like ingredients you buy for a meal you never make
my reasons to live expire

and I,
my blood and bones,
expire too

one just has to time it right, I think
to die before our reasons do

I’d hold out longer
if I had any reason to

I’ve run the calculous
over and over now

that nearing me is painful
so what better way to keep everyone who loves me
at a safe distance

I have a language that I can speak
but it isn’t english

by the time I go to work tomorrow
I’ll forget why I haven’t quit

I’ll wonder, like I always do,
why they ever settled for me in this position

and I’ll decide to do what they always wanted
but never knew how to ask for

I can’t afford lunch
I can’t afford lunch

my lease is up
I can’t afford lunch

the descending lit up numbers of the elevator
I’m trying to see some daylight

it’s overcast
I don’t know what to do with my cats
I’m trying to see some daylight

every crack in the pavement collects little rocks in them
I’m trying to see some daylight

the beautiful Nigerian on the sidewalk
we barely scrape some eye contact
they are barely not starving to death
no exercise of gratitude could cancel this

I’d like to starve to death, once
to know, finally, what it will be like
for the universe
once we string out

the shirt I wore is too warm
these big headphones, too warm
I want to starve to death
I’m trying to see some daylight
I can’t afford lunch
my blood and bones
expire
and my reasons to live
and my reasons to live
too

Blog, Poetry

death, depression, grief, loss, meaning, poem, poetry
May 9, 2023

“need” @church

“need” @church
decrypted means
some % of me
belongs some % to
them
& the crown I have to bow
to in gratitude… // say
“you made me fearfully and wonderfully
& broken and depraved”
from 1/2 our mouth “you love me”
and 1/2 “you hate”
and in one voice “I deserve it,
you despise me,
& I hope I live forever

this way.”

Poetry

christianity, faith, loss, meaning, poem, poetry, theology
April 19, 2023

(this experiment still didn’t help)

things can matter just to me
things can matter just to me
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Poetry

Art, death, depression, faith, grief, loss, love, meaning, philosophy, poem, poetry
April 15, 2023

the luckiest glimpse

when we become
when you become
so tired
so completely // unambiguously tired
& it (our energy) expires forever
our facade falls
our bodies lay
our faces
our faces slip
and the lucky
the luckiest of us
will catch beyond
behind
(what is behind)
what we call ourselves
the luckiest catch
some reflection
of our exact
our energy (our lack of it)
& let our face slip
our body lay
facade fall

& the luckiest glimpse
it // and never wonder again
where our beauty is

Poetry

faith, god, loss, meaning, philosophy, poem, poetry, Taoism, theology
March 23, 2023

“Cannot we just always be happy?”

If there were nothing in the mourning
we could not have at peace
then I’d agree

as it is
I think
compassion only grows in grief
compassion only learns another’s name
suffering.

“What about a world with no suffering? Is that not the place compassion too compels us toward? Is it, therefore, no holy aim?”
I’ll answer.
Once compassion finds
compassion’s aiming end — it obliterates
& all its excess energy imparts
itself to life
and living it.

Poetry

depression, faith, grief, loss, meaning, poem, poetry, Taoism, theology
March 18, 2023

on the experience of grief over time

i experience him gone
but then
i experience him here

grief makes me know
it is like the physicist says
& grief makes me experience it
how time could all be equally real
& no illusions
as past and future never collapse
instead, it is that grief can make my present grow

the mystics make it sound so odd
but everyone who has lost someone
who has ever held a ghost
everyone who has ever loved and notices how wrong it is to say
to say “loved” in the past tense // knows
they know
how grief makes the present grow
engulfing our entire lived experience
and pulling in the future too
the future we already know
we know will have the same
the same cavity where they should be
we experience it
in the growing of our grief

and so we grieve it all at once
from the last look on their face
to the death of the universe

Poetry

death, friendship, god, grief, loss, meaning, poem, poetry, Taoism

Tag: loss