LESSONS IN ABSCENCE

 

Lessons in Absence

Absence, my silent mentor,

Teaches me to care with caution,

To keep my heart at arm’s length,

Safe from the chill of neglect.  

Amidst life’s tempests—deadlines, dramas,

Scandals that scorch like summer fires—

We still carve sanctuaries for what matters.

But here, the sanctuary lies abandoned,

Overgrown with weeds of indifference.  

Phone tag, a game of misses,

Each call a ship passing in the night.

Emails reduced to haikus of indifference,

Brevity that speaks volumes of disinterest.  

I reach out, casting lines into the void,

Hoping for a tug, a sign of life.

But the replies are echoes, faint and brief,

Leaving me to wonder what went wrong.  

Hello’s bright dawn fades to goodbye’s dusk,

A cycle as sure as the turning earth.

Is this the fate of all we hold dear,

To bloom, then wither, in time’s embrace?  

Yet, in this lesson, I find a strange peace,

A knowing that comes with the pain.

For every goodbye clears the stage,

For a new hello to begin again.