The Fever of Loss
By John Herlihy

Desolation invaded the mind like a plague,
Loss an ocean that brings waves of fever,
Cresting hot then falling into troughs of cold,
A trance settles moving from light to darkness.
The house was all but empty and felt dead,
A snow hut in winter with perpetual winds.
A gaping hole in life that will not soon be filled,
He needed a patch to cover up what lies missing,
A needle to sow the frayed threads of his life.
Winds howl through the empty places in his mind,
Loss is but a mist that crawls through the shadows.
A desire for something we were not meant to have,
He thought it was love but now he knows it was haunting.
He releases his loss to a graveyard of forgotten memory,
By the wind grieved, a faint sigh heard, a ghost seen,
Only to disappear into the shadows, losing its gleam.