Losing It Slowly, Losing It All at Once...

Every love starts with a spark. Few stay magical forever. Poets Lang Leav and Tishani Doshi trace the beginning, the middle, and the end — sometimes one-sided, sometimes over before it's ready to be. Three Questions - Lang Leav“What was it like to love him? Asked Gratitude.It was like being exhumed, I answered, and brought to life in a flash of brilliance.What was it like to be loved in return? Asked Joy.It was like being seen after a perpetual darkness, I replied. To be heard after a lifetime of silence.What was it like to lose him? Asked Sorrow. There was a long pause before I responded:It was like hearing every goodbye ever said to me—said all at once.”Love Poem - Tishani DoshiUltimately, we will lose each otherto something. I would hope for grandcircumstance — death or disaster.But it might not be that way at all.It might be that you walk outone morning after making loveto buy cigarettes, and never return,or I fall in love with another man.It might be a slow drift into indifference.Either way, we’ll have to learnto bear the weight of the eventualitythat we will lose each other to something.So why not begin now, while your headrests like a perfect moon in my lap,and the dogs on the beach are howling?Why not reach for the seam in this South Indiannight and tear it, just a little, so the fallingcan begin? Because later, when we crosseach other on the streets, and are forcedto look away, when we’ve thrownthe disregarded pieces of our togethernessinto bedroom drawers and the smellof our bodies is disappearing like the sweetdecay of lilies — what will we call it,when it’s no longer love?