about grief

what is it that eats at you over and over and yet can never truly take a bite? what is it that pretends to heal and then peels back it’s own scab to reveal the wound still festered and weeping?
something about finality tears at our corporeal forms, as if the cells that bind us together are shaking at the thought of being torn slowly and softly away from one another by the decaying that time brings. something in the grief doesn’t agree with our systems, but like a parasite, refuses to leave us all the same.
grief could be a sea, that we all must visit time and again through our lives, a place we all are moving closer to the longer we live, the further we age.
and some of us, learn to live in the sea, to bear the itch of it’s salt, to wear the wrinkle and irritation of the water, to feel the sting of it in our noses and throats as it’s waves assault us again and again. and still we bear it, we normalize it, we romanticize it. what else can we do about this hellish place we’ve been made to live in?
grief wearies you, the way a 50 pound pack would weigh down your muscles and bones as you hiked up a mountain. grief drags you back as heavily as that pack—as you brush your teeth and stare at the monitor at work, and stir dinner, and read the paper. grief reminds you of the temporary nature of your teeth and the toothpaste and the work you do and the meals you eat and the news you read. grief pauses you as you hover above and outside of time, watching it pass with an ambiguity that could shock kings who’ve otherwise never lost a night of sleep.
grief frees you from time and makes you a man on an island alone. because you no longer feel the deep affect of living in your own time. you only know the certainty of everything’s impermanence. nothing will last, if you wait long enough.
don’t confuse our meaning. that doesn’t mean things matter less. it means all the small things matter more, and all the big things will be resolved some day. isn’t that a comforting thought? this mundane moment of reflection in a public library is infinitely of value, and the passing hardships caused by the ruling class are momentary. that’s lovely to know.
the grief is still here, saltwater in your nose, sharp on your tongue, weighing down your muscles and begging you to sink. because earlier, we didn’t tell you the whole story. nothing will last-except the love. and because grief is the manifestation of love with nowhere to go—the grief also lasts forever.
no amount of time could make me forget how much i miss my gramma’s smile, her hugs, her voice. no amount of time will make my aunt’s absence in my life hurt less.