Together, with absence

There are seasons when my loneliness

is more bitter, more unbearable.

And it’s not only in winter time,

though the cold, dark, heavy

nights don’t help.

Sometimes, when I merely name it,

as if at the doctor’s office:

This is the reason.

This is the root.

The throbbing seems to cease,

at least for a moment.

I take the prescribed muting drugs:

friends, art, exercise.

And here’s the thing -

I’m not all that sad.

We all have our various ways of feeling

fully alive, fully, together with absence,

together with lacking, with the empty

space to pursue the fickle sense

of wholeness and being enough.

And so we are -

though it doesn’t add up.

You’re messing with algebra

You say, and you are right,

but that’s the only way

I know how to be human.