Poem: A Love Lost

One of the sickle cell warriors on the facebook page shared this with me and it was so evocative I just had to share it with all of you.

A Love Lost by Kelsey Taylor

I never thought that the pain of a love lost would hurt more than the pain of the sharpened sickled cells which scar my body.
Loves ache cuts deeper than the superficial wounds that cause my body to shut down.
I hurt
Normally with my Sickle Cell I can pinpoint the pain
I can point out,
I can put a place to it,
I know that my marrow is at the very source of the agony,
but with love loss I cannot find a source,
it hurts all over,
I cannot find a reason why you so deliberately broke my heart without thinking twice
I cannot put the pain into words,
and I cannot wrap my head around the cause, the source of this wound that cuts so deep.
With you it used to be so simple.
You gave me a meaning, a reason to live,
a reason to fight this battle
You helped me through every hospitalization.
You were my drug
Your kiss would numb me, send this high throughout my whole entire body that was far more effective than any Morphine or Codeine.
Your smile would give me a light out the darkness of the hospital despair, give me a hope that shined so brightly that I no longer felt trapped inside the dark prison of the hospital walls.
Your laugh would bring the coupled pleasure to my pain, knowing that i made you laugh was the only task that I could accomplish when I wasn’t asleep and exhausted from the doctors ruthless awakenings in the middle of the night.
Your touch was the only thing that gave me comfort,
when the pain was so unbearable that tears would stream down my face it was your touch that made my body at ease.
I needed the rays of sunshine from you that powered my lust for life,
and the sweet smell of the air I breathed depended on you.
You were the earth, the dirt, the soil that grounded my roots.
My Soul,
my immortal lines of life that spread into you, only grew on the nutrients of your love.
I needed you.
You were the yellow marrow of my vitality.
And when I closed my buds into a cold ball of sick necrosis,
its because I couldn’t feel you. I couldn’t see you.
But at the end of the day, you were the one part of my life that this disease could not control and could not ruin.
or so I thought.
Our relationship was stronger than my bones, stronger than the inner strength I built up for so many years.
Our love traveled distances
It was like the tension between two telephone poles,
stretched out so that their longevity anchors one another,
An interconnection between two thick pieces of licorice,
the flow of velocity stiffened,
And as the tight flow of love stiffened,
And I realized that our love was the only lifeline to be reached between two cities,
Between two worlds,
But still however connected we were,
I always tried to remember to be self sufficient.
I never trusted you completely with my heart,
I thought I could never be vulnerable because then people would think that this whole tough facade that got me through every medical endeavor would be fake, a mask worn.
But with you I was as vulnerable as I could be without seeming week.
With you I opened myself up because I thought I could trust you and be confident in the fact that you wouldn’t break me, and cause me any more pain on top of all of the pain I already experience.
I thought you understood that.
But then you left.
Just like that you deserted me in a time in need.
The time when I was questioning risking my life,
doing a bone marrow transplant,
all to change something,
change my sickle cell,
this thing that has whether I liked it or not made me who I am today.
I was confused.
I was scared.
For the first time in my life I had the opportunity to risk it all,
just to not have Sickle Cell anymore.
and right at that time you realized that having sickle cell was all of the sudden too much for you to handle.
and you vanished.
Just like that you caused me the worse pain I have ever experienced in my life.
Looking back, I can’t tell if it was you or this disease that took me out.
My whole life I had to be strong, self sufficient, I had to realize that no one will ever get what it is like to be riddled with bone bruising pain, a pain that feels like a fire,  burning all of who you are to ashes,
I’ve numbed myself to any emotion,
to any belief that someone wants to be with me and take on the burden that I so gracefully carry on my shoulders
every
single
day.
But then I found you
you restored my faith in love
my faith that love is the only remedy I need to beat this pain.
but just like that you walked away from it all,
causing the only heartbreaking pain that I’ve known to be worse than Sickle Cell,
a love lost.

By Kelsey Taylor. Visit her site HERE.

SC Warrior

1 Comment

  1. Olajumoke on August 8, 2012 at 6:38 am

    If this is real, I can’t even imagine your personalty today. I can’t preach anything to you cos you seems hurt beyond anything I’ve ever imagined. I’ve been heartbroken but this right here doesn’t belong in the category of mine. I pray you find true love again. I hope you find Peace. I hope you find fulfilment and new meanings.Trust me the love you seek will someday return….. Someday. Until then May the lord comfort you. xoxo



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