A sample of Loving, Longing, and Other Liminal Spaces
Loving, Longing, and Other Liminal Spaces
Kelly Peacock
Thought Catalog Books — thoughtcatalog.com
Copyright © 2023 Kelly Peacock.
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Produced by Chris Lavergne and Noelle Beams
Art direction and design by KJ Parish
Creative editorial direction by Brianna Wiest
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First Edition, Limited Edition Pressing
Printed in the United States of America.
ISBN 978-1-949759-79-2
This is for the ones who are navigating
the space of loving and healing
and are learning how to come home to themselves.
This is for the ones who don’t know much about love
but know a lot about giving and grieving it.
This is for the ones who are learning
to love themselves instead.
loving and longing.
I do believe it is better to have loved and lost
than to have not loved at all,
but then I think of him
and the way we forfeited our story.
There’s nothing poetic about that.
This is what loving looks like.
Loving, longing, loving, losing—
it’s all the same
to me.
All I’ve ever known is loving someone
with mouths agape, arms outstretched,
gently envious of everyone
who comes close to them.
But loving someone and then losing them—
I don’t know how to navigate that space.
All I know is that it feels like abandonment.
There is nothing poetic
about the way we
lost one another.
All I want is to not think of you anymore
and how you loved me—
hardly.
I catch myself reaching for you in the dark,
as if you’re still next to me under the covers,
as if our legs are still touching,
as if my hair was still getting caught under your arm.
I reach for you,
because that’s all I’ve ever known how to do.
But I am in the middle of the bed now,
under the covers,
in the dark,
and you are not here with me.
You are not reaching back.
We moved together
with such ease,
and purpose,
as if this was supposed to happen for us.
We came together
and let each other go
and then came back together again.
That’s the way it goes with twin flames,
wouldn’t you agree?
Wouldn’t you say this was meant to happen to us?
