loss

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your email says

i feel like a loser a lot, like i’ve lost.

i think about all the things i’ve lost 

weight, lovers, memory

dignity, time, self respect

and people

most of all i lose people

to prison, to ghosts, to the ground

to a changed phone number

to a nothing that meant everything.

i start to count loss with my fingers

the summer we lost our home

and last year, my pride 

my innocence and my milk teeth in the same winter

my father, my brother

my country, my accent.

the television tells us that we

have to ’let go’

and i do.

even my secrets

i lose to poems.

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