What is navigating loss and longing truly about? There are moments when we feel something slipping away from us. Not a dramatic farewell, but the subtle, unsettling silence of prolonged and unexpected absence. We struggle to grasp it—whether an emotion, a memory, a past version of ourselves—to discover its edges blurred, as if clarity is painfully out of reach.

This poem came from that peculiar in-between place where longing and uncertainty intertwine, and hope quietly reassures that what’s missing isn’t lost but merely waiting to be rediscovered.

Where Are You?

I have been looking through dirty glass,
hoping to catch a glimpse
of what I thought I lost.

How is it that time moves around you like eddies,
wetting your toes and nose alike—
unencumbered snowflakes?

I put you in a place
where I knew I could find you
when I needed to
step away from my maze.

When I returned and opened the dusty box,
a still emptiness stared back,
swinging like a pendulum.

I don’t want to think
about where you ran off,
to meet another who wasn’t
looking through the same dirty glass.

You’ll turn up soon.