How Much

Carissa Ma

You asked me “How much?”

If I could quantify missing someone like you,

I could measure the lightness of being and the heaviness of trust,

could number the width of my pride and the depth of my self-disgust,

could cure myself of the avarice of giving but seldom receiving,

could deplore the treachery of my being always forgiving,

could conjugate the irregularity of my verbs and virtues,

could fathom the opacity of our collective waiting-to-die,

could perhaps, love myself.

Carissa Ma is an Assistant Professor of Anglophone Literature at Florida Atlantic University. Outside of teaching and researching postcolonial speculative fiction, she enjoys hunting for vintage finds at thrift shops.