Chameproi

I told him I felt lost this morning.
I woke with an ache in my side
And I didn’t know where I was,
Or what had happened to me.
What is the English word for this?
A small boat unmoored and drifting
In a sea with no land.
It happens all the time for me.

I told him I wish we had a word like the one
Our friends tattooed on their arms:
Saudades - the feeling of missing something,
Laced with nostalgia and the paradox of endings,
Like a train whistle fading into cold air.
It’s not just “I miss you”;
Rather, it’s:
I miss how it was, how we were.

---

He told me we can create a word for your lost mornings
Because all words are made up anyways
And why shouldn’t we, together,
Build our own castle, moat and all, out of sand?
Why not us?
And so was born a word beginning with “sh”:
Chameproi.

I had chameproi today
And I lay awake in my bed
Until slowly, certainly,
The room and its territory
Marched in to surround me,
Calling me by my name.
Shhh.