Daeus Jorento

I’m reminded, every now and then,
to save a little space
in the house I’ve built in my mind.
A small, quiet corner.
for ghosts.
Even if I cannot name them anymore.
Even if they were never truly mine.
For those feelings of emptiness and grief,
beneath the surface.
The hollowness that returns long after the party’s over,
when I’m lying in bed, wishing I could sleep.

It’s not depression.
Not a pendulum swing from anxiety.
It’s loss.
A silent scream into empty space.
Rage with nowhere to land.
At being unseen.
Or seen, but never truly known.
Of meeting a soul-deep connection
and losing them
before I could say goodbye.
Again and again.
Forever.
Where a part of me is still waiting,
thinking of what could have been.

Sometimes I feel so old.
Fragile, even.
To think that this is really it.
time to close a chapter of my life.
After all that waiting.
All that boredom.
A phantom scar
for what’s no longer there.
Tired of losing,
and knowing
there’s still so much left to lose.

Sometimes a well of sadness surfaces in me.
Mourning all the lost moments
of presence and connection
that passed by unheeded.
Sometimes it hits like a wave crashing over me.
Sometimes it’s a dull ache.
Therapy has helped me name this feeling,
and ride out the waves better.
A sense of loss
over what could have been.
If things had gone differently.
If we hadn’t had to carry
such heavy stones. 

Everything I’ve ever known
will someday go away.
Not just me, but all of it.
All my eyes have seen,
All my ears have heard,
All my hands have felt.
The ocean. The sky.
The streets I walk.
The strangers I never met.
My home.
The people I love most.
Time will take it all away.
And one day it will hit.
this is it.
The big one.
The one we don’t return from. 

What was,
and what could have been.
The reconnection to the truth
of the burden we all bear.
of being alive.
That all chapters,
and dances,
and songs,
must end.
I’m surrounded by future ghosts.
Sometimes blocked by
mindless scrolling on my phone.
An endless dark ocean.
No longer having experiences.
Of not really being anymore. 

Escaping this sadness is a delusion.
A denial of reality.
Some people lose someone close
and never fully return.
A piece is missing,
maybe even romanticized.
They start to live in the past.
I see so much rage
in trying to go back.
Or a primal childhood fear:
That if I start crying
I’ll never stop.
Never reach the catharsis.
Just running away,
never living fully.
A walking re-run.
Hungry ghosts.
People who don’t care anymore
once cared too much.
Losing a home in someone
and never finding it again.
Always a stranger.
Losing my memory,
and my grip on reality.
like I am falling forever.
Fighting hopelessly
against the water
slipping through my fingers.

So I try to leave a little space.
For my grief.
For the adventures I’ll never have.
And all the sadness of life.
The price I pay for being alive
and the freedom of choice.
And the fleeting joy that often ends abruptly.
A space to remember
the little boy I was
and to take care of him now. 

And when I die,
I’ll likely return
to wherever I was
before I was born.
To the deep stillness beneath the earth.
To a power I will never understand.
Drifting into the wind,
as stardust.

And in that end,
beyond the grief,
is a quiet gratitude.
For my small space on this rock.
For the time I have left.
And my silly little life,
with those I love.