Grief

Grief is a weird concept. It doesn’t make sense. You wake up in a different state 1200 miles and two weeks away and despite everything you think, I want you to be happy. I want you to feel free. I want you to carry on that important life Im no longer apart of, even if you occupied such a large part of mine that Im lost to the light. I want to keep you safe from the part of me still consumed in this shadow world, glancing into the lackluster life I learned to live before you. But heartache always seems more raw. More real. Even when there is too much blame to pass around like another reused needle. Another betrayal infecting my brain as it lulls itself into a hollow buzz. Whether from myself or any other, heartache hurts until it doesn’t; until Im overdosing on emotions that I struggled so hard to keep locked away, when there is nothing left to feel but the track marked cavity carved in my chest.

But grief.. Grief comes on in a sublime way that makes astounding associations I’d rather never think about, lest I end up back to blaming myself.

It makes tacos taste different and no amount of hot sauce good enough. It tunes my radio to the country I grew up loving. It changes the shape of the clothes you left kicked in the corner. It smokes my cigarettes twice as fast. It fixates on not saying the word ‘starving’.

Heartache screams “Im here! I swear I am. Wayyy down here in the depths of the last cavern you left me. Theres agony, despair, and so much new pain to reopen so many old wounds”

But see, grief doesn’t scream. In fact, it barely speaks at all and when it does, it whispers in short sentences you’d never say like:

“Dont throw out that food you bought to make me on our next date even though most of the ingredients already went bad.”

Sometimes it will crawl into a little box hidden under my bed from the rest of the world, leaving mementos just in case I ever forget someone, somewhere once loved one like me.

“Dont put back the cookbook you knew Id like that night we got stoned and danced in your living room.”

It likes to stroll out whenever theres isnt enough heat and hide whenever there’s any light. Sadly, no one told me how hot hell could burn without a flame.

“Dont change the record we had on either.“

And Im sure you’re fine, healed. Doing better off without my baggage to weigh you down.

“Your hope, your faith surely cant be worse than this so if you want to ever see me again, make sure you leave that fan on in your room because you know I cant sleep without it.“

Living your best life with all the color and promise of a rainbow wrapped in the electricity of your skin, dazzling like some sort of specter who, without any effort at all, is gliding right through me from across the entire fucking country

“Even though your bed smells nothing like me anymore, I know you wont change that pillowcase.”

And if I sleep at all, its on the couch. I started dreaming the same awful dream on repeat the moment your head left the spot it belongs on my chest. And there’s no rest for me in a bed so large.

“I love your long, curly hair. Dont cut it and I might just come back.”

Your sunflower eyes. Your arched back. The things you said. And all the things you didn’t. The way you felt wrapped up in my arms. They way you twitch when you sleep. Your good taste in everything and the way you taste. The things you do to help your friends. Your endless stories that keep me hooked. The way you handle yourself with grace. The black outfits covered in cathair. The way you licked me before you kissed me. The way you giggle when you kiss. The odd hours you keep. Your brown leather boots. The pride you take in your work and art. The music you wrote into my bleak life for me to compose. Dart flowers. Bonfires. Animal bones. Forest salads. Reeses cups. Magic sticks. Opal gems. Moon gardens. Snakes. Tiny umbrellas. A fallen leaf. Your collarbone. And your laugh.

“Dont give up. I love you”

You haunt me with little reminders of how close I came to believing in something. And given the chance, Id do it all again the same way. Ive found there is no other way to live this life but all of the sudden. It happens too fast, like a current that pulls you along until you learn to swim. And you try and try and try some more to oppose it until finally you give in, exhausted from the pull. Given the opportunity, I could learn to ask for help instead of shouting it at you as I sink. And I hope that when that time comes you might know how to, or even care enough to breath through it with me because this way, the one where distance yourself until you leave as suddenly as I live and love, has turned everything I ever adored about you into a swollen, muddy river of grief. And I cant get out. Not yet.

Because for no one else would I be so willing to drown.

I guess what Im trying to say is that it really meant something.

Everything.

To someone like me.