losing you again

I thought I lost you once— but in truth, I lose you again and again and again and again. I’m reminded I've lost you When I think of a joke but turn to empty space, When something silly stops me cold, When life's questions strike me silent, With no one left to tell and no one left to hold. At every turn, I see you, and the memory of us. You are there and I lose you fresh, and it cuts me new. The echoes slice deeper than the first goodbye, as if my heart refuses to learn the silhouette of your absence. The brain believes what is repeated. And with every reminder that steals you from a place you never were, the loss sharpens - distorting memories with the ghost of what might have been. Yet loss assumes you were once mine. And now I have to live with life's cruelest trick: to mourn what was never known, to grieve what was never given, to ache for what has never been mine to behold.