When he looks inside, the doctor says, You’re fine,
save for a few loose parts even he can’t name.
That might be why I feel so hollowed out
when he tells me Breathe, and then, Again,
and I admit to myself, if not to him,
I know this feeling from before,
a time I was young and hollowed out for sure.
He says, Medicine has no name for this,
but we can call it Longing, if you like.
He knows I like when things have names,
but it takes too long till names come known.
What’s usually best is just move on, breathe on my own–
if not exactly free, then calm and hollowed out
the way it was, when I used to be.
Alan Walowitz is a long-time poet currently living in Nassau County, a suburb of NYC. He currently teaches at Manhattanville College in Westchester.
Categories: Poetry
Tags: Alan Walowitz, e-zine, ezine, hyperbole, longing, melancholy, melancholy hyperbole, poem, poet, poetry, poets, submit, The Anatomy of Longing, writing
Melancholy Hyperbole 
love this!
Alan,
What a very feeling poem. Your sensitivity and willingness to share your feelings is refreshing in our typically sheltered/very private ways that we communicate.
Keep writing and sharing.
Best,
Brian
I love this poem–it’s so perfectly understated and so supremely full of the emotion that it is directing the reader to realize is missing from his/our lives…
Love, Jeanette
This poem hits me in the heart like a haunting melody–it’s both beautiful and melancholic. I love it so much I could cry.