Lost Love

Artwork by Angelica Rodriguez

For months I anticipated you, my love. 

But you only stayed briefly, 

They felt like seconds. 

They had to be seconds.

I cry out for you.

This yoke has done its job in confining.

No longer can I chase after you.

Was I ever able to?

My yearning attachment for you so big,

and so pitiful; heart-rendering.

I am disturbed for what has happened 

to you, my beloved, for your legs are so frail, 

your eyes so benign. Where could you have

gone?

My body aches and I weep for you,

renders nothing for you, and me.

-Angelica Rodriguez

Author's note: I wrote this piece at 3:00 on May 22. I couldn’t sleep and I thought about that mother cow I watched in a documentary, how she probably felt helpless and maybe even culpable for a disaster that was never her fault. She missed her calf so dearly, I wonder why we eat these creatures.