A Letter To All I've Lost Poem by Hasan Haskovic

Somewhere, not far from here, my dear
There's a lake that still recalls our name
Or rather, a body of clear water
In which our reflections tangled as we played our game
That of smiles, and averted gazes
Oh how've we've laid out this path like mazes;
We wanted to be lost

We'd stick branches in the flowing water
To disturb the audience of our own reflection
And we shouted out against God, our uncaring father
For never giving us a sense of direction;
We wanted to be lost

And in the coldness of that late summer evening
Where we'd hide in the canopy of faded branches and leaves
I was too afraid to speak my mind because there's always someone leaving
And my lips shivered much because it was too hard to believe
That I found someone worth keeping;
That I was found;
That somehow I was no longer alone;
That somehow we've found a common ground;

There's an apartment for us, not far from here, my dear
Where we'd admire the absence of Gods in our wake
And in your embrace, for once I was rid of fear
Though still like a spider in the rain would I shake

That is what had kept me alive;
The way our hearts together seemed to thrive
Beat in perfect unison, never to come undone
Before you, I was nothing - together we are one

But as of late, all you seem to say is that it's more than you can take
We fall hard on a hard time; easily forget exactly how our touch is sublime
And it's a common crime, the theft of hearts
A common genocide; two worlds being torn apart
And we are the victims of the knives we jab around in our flesh
Witnesses to the way our paths seem to digress

And back then, you said
'Sing me a lullaby, lover, put me to sleep
For tomorrow I will be gone'
And since that day I've impaled myself with suffering
Counting up all the things that I've done wrong

Perhaps it's common bickering, the feud between hearts
And the way they slowly shatter is just another branch of arts
But our masterpiece was to hold and to be held
To smile and to live as defiantly we rebelled
Against the laws the make the world;
We wanted to be lost.
We wanted to be found,
We had payed.
We found a common ground.
But I am deafened by the heart-breaking sound:

For you say
'Something has been irreversibly lost
Without you, I can make due'
And I swear how much pain and suffering to me this has brought
Because the reverse can never be true
For what I hold to you, my dear
Is not subject to time or to space
And I am terribly afraid, my dear
That without you my life has no meaning, not a trace

Once, we were prophets, tempered in patience and grace
Now we are patients whose hearts have lost their pace
Instead of tearing down our walls we put barbed wires in defense
Truly we are tangled like intruders in the wires of the fence

A ll I ever desired
L ost irreversibly to time
D renched in my failure
I am the perpetrator for the crime
J ustified by my blame
A trributed to my shame
N ever to be restored
A ll those possibilites left unexplroed

V owed to God that I am only hers
O wned by her smile
L ove like this never re-occurs
I nduced neither through smarts or guile
M erely by chance

T errified of being alone, of losing
E verything that I had to call home

I'm sorry, baby, for all the grief
That we've come to know

Witnessed the heart shrink
Never again to see it grow

Only you know;
Only you know;