A Kind Of Sorrow, A Secret Suffering Poem by RIC BASTASA

to lose you i know is one kind sorrow
for i claim a loss that i never had even once owned.

a play of words, and i know you do not understand
what each word means, what a punctuation is.

this heart that grieves for what it cannot even touch
with its fragile hands, its trembling fingers
for what i see is but a glimmer
a faint light, a shadow, a hush, a slight glimpse

no one knows what secret suffering is all about
(secret so to say, i give it a language of its own)
a heart that bleeds without drops of blood
a heart injured yet without the bruises and wound

i mix with the crowd just like what we do when we go malling.
i smile like the way all people smile. i always have a glimpse of you.
yet i know, i do not wait for anybody, or anything, this is simply
an impossible endeavor. Clouds that dissipate. Air that vanish.

a door that closes. a bus that leaves. a plane turning into a dot in space.
i look up actually for nothing. i pretend sometimes that there are stars where there are none but black clouds and tree tops.
i look down and only see suffering. Pebbles and gray sands.

i sleep without remembering my dreams. i wake up not thinking
about what to do specifically with my life. I have everything you say.
but since i do not have you, i am still nothing. I am simply arms emptied
of its embrace. I am hands groping with nothing but space.

it does not matter. i touch my chest and feel that i am strong.
i give up the gift of speech. I take in the gift of words written in utter silence.