CXXXV

I have named you queen.
There are taller than you, taller.
There are purer than you, purer.
There are lovelier than you, lovelier.
But you are the queen.

When you go through the streets
No one recognizes you.
No one sees your crystal crown, no one looks
At the carpet of red gold
That you tread as you pass,
The nonexistent carpet.

And when you appear
All the rivers sound
In my body, bells
Shake the sky,
And a hymn fills the world.

Only you and I,
Only you and I, my love,
Listen to me.

The Queen, Pablo Neruda

[Image: Toni Garn for Paris Match]

XXVIII

Have you ever lost someone? Have you ever lost someone that you loved. How did you lose them, and did they stay lost or did the losing fix itself. Or did you fix it. Or did they.

Have you ever lost someone in more ways than one – physically, emotionally, mentally… they were lost. Does the loss compound across the different levels of consciousness? Or is it just the one thing. Loss. Does anybody know.

I lost someone once. I lost someone I loved. And I didn’t lose him to another woman, or to a new set of ideas, or to a dream or a lifestyle, or another place. It wasnt mentally or emotionally.

I lost him in the truest sense of the word. I lost him and there was nothing I could do about it. I lost him without the slightest trace of warning. Oh, the universe doesn’t often warn the soon-harbourerers of sorrow.

I lost him in the blink of an eye.

I lost my love. He was taken from me. And every day I miss him.

I lost my love.

And the one who took him, was you.

(Woman writing a letter to the drunk driver that killed her love)