The Familiar

The Familiar | Parnika Garg

Photo by Sarika

Loss knows me better than most lovers ever did.

It knows I take my tea at 3 PM,

that I need the window cracked even in winter,

that I talk to myself while cooking dinner

small negotiations with the onions, the flame.

It's learned my routines with the patience

of something that plans to stay.

It knows which step creaks on the stairs,

knows I check my phone in the blue light

of almost-morning, hoping for what will never come.

Loss sits across from me at breakfast.

It's there in the second mug I almost pour,

the habit of setting two places

before I remember catch myself

put the extra fork away.

It knows my silences intimately:

the one in the car at red lights,

the one after someone asks "how are you"

and expects a simple answer,

the one that lives in the shape of your name.

Some nights, loss and I have an understanding.

It doesn't demand anything.

It just watches me brush my teeth,

fold the laundry, water the plants

a quiet witness to the life that continues.

It knows when I'm pretending,

when the smile is real,

when I'm halfway through a memory

before I realize I've been holding my breath.

Loss keeps track. Loss takes notes.

Maybe that's what grief is

not the dramatic breaking,

but this: the way sorrow learns

to move through a life,

to know it as well as skin knows bone.

Loss and I, we're old roommates now.

Some days I forget it's there.

Other days it's all I can see.

But it knows me

god, it knows me.

My rhythms. My rituals.

The particular angle of light I prefer.

How I like to be left alone,

and how I can't bear

to be left alone at all.