Losing teaches one how not to care about traffic jams, or nutrients in the food

or one’s own body odor
or when usually curly hair suddenly turns straight.

It makes one stop reading horoscopes, weather forecasts and cooking recipes, counting how many hours of sleep one will get,

gossiping, showing up, not showing up, being late

and being on time.
It makes one worry much less about electricity bills, projects and proposals,

summer plans,
staying longer at work, and working underpaid.

how their ass looks like, dry skin around nails, facial care,
facial and body hair,

When someone says that everything will be ok,
one doesn’t get upset or tries to explain why they think that it won’t.

One stops saying

I’m sad,
I’m tired
I’m exhausted confused anxious numb,

and one doesn’t ask anyone how they are.

Words like capitalism, patriarchy, sexism, hatred, anxiety,
burnout, depression, episode, insomnia, self-care, exhaustion, heartbreak

and when X asks: how are you
One says: thank you, I’m doing just fine.

lose their gravity and meaning,

(Not a single finger is being moved, nor an eyebrow.)

One is not keeping promises and dinners get cancelled.
One loses the charm and the careless interest needed to go unharmed through a small talk and since going out means interactions and work and organization-
one has to know where to go, with whom, who will be there and why
and especially where not to go because someone will be there for the reasons one better doesn’t know anything about-

they eventually let go of this form of distraction.

One starts saying more often: I don’t know. I didn’t hear.

I wasn’t there.
Can you repeat that please? Sorry, I don’t remember.
Sorry, do we know each other? How was your name?
No, I don’t know them.
Sorry, I didn’t recognize you.

One starts ignoring deadlines phone calls

emails
messages
letters
sales
special offers
and threats for unpaid bills.

One forgets to mark pages in the books, to wait for change,

what colors go well together,
which thoughts and situations justify to interrupt someone,
and by which principle to decide if a short trip is a necessity or a luxurious distraction from all that sudden unknowing.

There is no what if if only

how come
maybe if
or looking back with understanding or revelation.

There is no worry about getting cancer anymore and one smokes whenever and how much one pleases.

(Except when one is too lazy to go out and buy the tobacco- then one drinks as much water as one can.)

If someone writes: I miss you
One answers: I miss you too, let’s talk soon Even or especially when it’s a lie.

One says:

congratulations
and it was beautiful
and I’m happy for you
and I hope it works all good
and it was so nice to see you again and next time it will work out
and I’m sure it will work out
and shame I can’t make it,

but one doesn’t really mean any of that, even though it doesn’t feel like a lie.

Then X asks: what is going on? And one says: nothing is going on And that’s right.

Friends say:

and one says but don’t.

Friends also say:
and one tells them they can’t,

you should go on a vacation
you should do something nice
you should publish things
you should apply for this and for that you should ask around
you should move somewhere else
I will,

can we help

‘’but thank you.’’

Eventually X says: I don’t know what to say to you anymore,
and one is content that they reached that point,
so one says: I also don’t know what to say-
and thinks: Finally we had a good conversation.
Then one goes running and it feels like doing something really honest.

(Not because running is a metaphor for something else, but because once you start doing it, running, just like sleeping, can be only what it is and never a metaphor and

Sometimes after running or before running or after waking up or before falling asleep, a thought or a memory appears in one’s mind and one sits still and waits for the appropriate emotion to form.

that’s a relief.)

There’s an article that says that every emotion builds up during 90 seconds and then disappears and whatever one feels after that is a loop of that same emotion that was supposed to be gone,

so,
if you’re lucky.

One thinks:

if you can stay in it for 90 seconds you might as well be done with it, I’m a tough shit and for sure I can stay 90 seconds in the emotion.

Sometimes it feels like phantom pain of an amputated foot Sometimes like choking on a piece of apple
Sometimes like cutting onions
Sometimes like a nut itching in the throat

Sometimes like stabbing in the lungs
Sometimes like tingling in the left arm, from the shoulder down to the tip of the thumb Sometimes it feels like a gorilla trapped in the chest of a fat rat running in the cage wheel

sometimes from the perspective of a gorilla and sometimes from the perspective of the anxious fat rat with diabetes and not so rarely from the perspective of the shaking cage and even more o en from the perspective of the wheel that’s almost collapsing under the growing weight of the rat and the rage of the gorilla in pms,

like wetness and heat pulsing between the legs like envy
like regret
like pride

like shame
like sorrow
like cold sweaty palms
like ears filling with warm protein-rich tears, like burning at the stake,
like falling into a pit full of worms,
like not being able to move,
like a sharp spike forming in the guts,
like smelling a bottle of Iodine,
like sun in the mouth,
like salt on your face,

And sometimes there would be nothing.

One dreams of piles of gold,
and golden necklaces that are too small to be worn,

of breaking tiles with their heels
of birds with blue stones instead of eyes
of people dancing and laughing in a burning hotel of the ocean coming for them,

and in the morning, one finds it strange to not care if those dreams mean something.