It is said that the risk of love is loss. When I heard the word risk, it immediately reminded me of an adventure. Here we will dwell upon what happens after you find love and then lose it for one reason or the other. I am tempted to believe that love and loss are the two sides of the same coin. Have you truly experienced love if you haven’t experienced loss as well?
The above statement begets another question, would you rather take a risk to love or would you rather live a plain life, without the appending risk of coping with loss? For me, living a full life means that we collect a bouquet of varied experiences from the garden of life. I feel there is a beauty in both love and loss – they are the crest and trough of the same continuum of emotions, rising in ebb and flow.
Rudyard Kipling wrote, “Words are, of course, the most powerful drug used by mankind.” I tend to believe that if words are drugs, then poetry is that inebriated state when you are floating mid-way between reality and imagination. The state is similar when you are balancing between holding on and letting go or in the other words, you are in the transient state between love and loss.
*****
I Might Remember You
In solitude,
if I sit and think long enough
I might remember you.
I might remember
the way you smiled at me,
for that brief instant.
I might see
your radiant face,
I might feel the caress
of your soft tresses on my shoulder.
I may even reach out,
to feel your hand in mine.
Alas! In vain.
I ripped through the pages of the calendar
tearing asunder the days, months, years
that will never come.
When I will hear your voice again
if only for one last time.
My heart choking at the thought
that I may never see you again.
I clear my head
open my eyes.
One last puff on the cigarette,
and in the billowing smoke,
gone is the love
that I never felt for you.
*****
Below are two more poems that delve into the topic of love and loss. Someone asked, why choose poetry to depict these emotions? Because while prose speaks to your mind, I feel poetry speaks to both your mind and soul. Poetry is a balancing act between reality and perception, and so is the art of living that calls for a fine balance of letting go and holding on. When you leave something behind, you are about to stumble upon something new, novel, and exciting.
*****
Rejoice!
I am free now-
released from the leashes
of thy haunting presence.
Free to be loved again,
free to be born again;
I (is it you?)
have ripped apart
the manacles of love,
the millstone around my neck.
Life has its own taste,
I have drunk it to relish.
Thy exit from my life
I mourn not, but
I seek thee
in my silent grief.
Alas!
Indeed, I will rejoice.
*****
I Am Free
Arms wide open,
outstretched
I’m falling.
Falling from this narrow ledge
of logic,
rationality,
to the unfathomed depths
of ludicrousness.
Absurd.
Reality. That’s non-sense.
I tear myself open.
Blood drips down
from the gashes of unhealed wounds.
Light. Orb of fire.
I glare at the sun.
Dissolve into the ethereal air,
hazy clouds clear
from the tentacles of mind.
I emerge
Naked. Reborn.
Did I love you?
The voice echoes
between my ears,
I strain to hear an answer.
At last,
there is a sense in this madness.
I am free.
*****
These poems are taken from the author’s recently published book – ‘Years Spent: Exploring Poetry in Adventure, Life and Love – available on Amazon.
Lalit Kumar works in the Technology sector in the SF Bay area and likes to write both prose and poetry. His new book Years Spent: Exploring Poetry in Adventure, Life, and Love has just been published and it’s slated to be displayed at New Delhi World Book Fair 2022. He can be reached on Instagram @lalitk06 and on his blog at https://lalitk06.medium.com.