Years Spent Grieving: (Unrefined)

Tis a brave thing we do to love that which death can touch

To watch someone you love writhing in pain

To hear honest cries

To see tears born of struggle

What words is she trying to say to me

You know why we cry. Why we scream. All our years of language. Our linguistics. Our phonetics our literature. Our lexis and structure.

We cry because pain can not wait to be described. Pain is so elusive. So total. So cunning.

It’s been many years spent silently grieving. But grief tires. You don’t grieve as strongly and boldly as you used to. You grieve gently. Silently. When you can find the time. And you grieve differently: Time has passed. You do not remember. The things that made the loss so hard to bear. The moments you shared. The songs. The smiles. The laughter. The joy. The anguish. You grieve time. You grieve time for healing all wounds.

It has been many years spent grieving. I do not love you any less. Maybe even more. I wish I could hear you. Hold you. But I can not remember. I guess it was intentional to forget because I remember everything.

It’s been so many years. It feels much longer. Maybe how much I’ve aged in the time apart. So many years since I last used your name. I never say it. It makes me afraid. So much makes me afraid. Is it weird that I am still scared of losing you? I think in a way a part of me left with you that day. I feel lighter in my soul and heavier in my burden and the taste has long been wiped from life but I live it still. Because how will I grieve if I am not here to grieve. How will I mourn if I am not there to mourn?

Death touches

Death takes

Death does for death’s sake

But grief is never about death

But life

Tis a brave thing to love what life can touch

Life is terse

Life is the shrill requiem

Death is salvation

And so the dead may not grieve

Their fate; sail the waters of eternal ease

Ours; the tempest of their fading memories to clutch in our atrophied hands

The end.