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HERE AND GONE

by Jenn Powers

In yoga class we’re told to connect with our Ujjayi breath, and the whole room sounds like the ocean

We’re told to stay in the present, to hold the pose even during discomfort

But what if I’m always in discomfort? How do I hold a pose that doesn’t seem to end?

I remember parts of you: coffee-colored freckles, a silky scar, gold hair 

But, lately, you’re disappearing. Like losing a balloon as a kid,

how it slips from my hand so quick, and then having to watch it leave me

until it

disappears

I’m tired of starting over. I’m tired of rebirth.

I’m tired of the fire and trying to rise from the ash—

And you—hot and cold, push and pull, here to gone.

During shavasana, we play dead, palms up, effortless breath where it’s easy to forget breath, 

but then the ache comes like a hot ripple. It’s also called corpse pose—

did you know you can actually die from a broken heart? 

There’s a medical term for it

It sounds so poetic to die for love, but the path to it just tastes like salt

The hardest part isn’t remembering the end—and how something can fall apart so fast—

it’s remembering the beginning before the beginning 

before I knew you 

before that evening you walked in to meet me, 

and I was still myself