Real loss

real loss is felt in the bones.

to feel it is to quiver in the heart directly.
to shiver from the center, in flutters outward
to trembling limbs weak
and untrustworthy.
when tear-valves contract, and breaths move rapid
and wild
and irregular.

it is to shudder in the spine
and gut
and places we rarely remember or feel.

to flare in the nostril, twitch in the center of the eyelid,
clench the perineum, and wag the metatarsals
all in symphonic relation...
toward a beautiful and vast absence of control

to feel instantly and completely in the body and
in the voice of the mind
and in the rapids of swishing, encaspulated blood
and in the plunging depths of
a soul that we may or may not claim,

that moment of clarity and unbounded freedom.
when you realize that


Inhale:
they were never yours


Exhale:
nothing ever is