Love and Loss

There is a pain I do not know
Cannot know
Don't really want to know.
The pain of loss.
The loss of control
over the loss of a soul
of someone close to me.
I haven't cried endless nights
I haven't sobbed asking why
this one I so love was taken away.
I do not know this pain.
Because I do not know,
I cannot understand.
I simply can't relate.
And though I sometimes wish
I could comprehend the pain
I know I don't want to experience it.
For this is my greatest mortal fear.
To lose one whom I love
Knowing this life will never see us
together again.
I think of how it will happen,
who it will be.
When?
Will it be expected after an illness
Or will a foolish driver make this reality true
long before it should have been.
An icy road, a rickety vehicle, a violent criminal.
All equally capable of snatching from my heart
the comfort of wholeness.

The danger in loving is the endpoint of that love. The wider my circle, the greater the chance of losing someone in it. I find myself asking if that is a risk that I'm willing to take. But the question is brief as I remember the truth that " 'Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all." (Tennyson)