Structural Ambiguity

“you were the loss of my life”

The title phrase holds three simultaneous meanings: (1) he was a loss to her life — she lost him; (2) he was the loss of her life — he nearly destroyed her; (3) he was the loss of the life she had imagined living with him. The phrase is syntactically ambiguous and emotionally complete at each reading.

Central to themes of Grief and Romantic loss — the title phrase collapses three registers of loss into one.