Grief Is A Peculiar Thing

Grief has touched me,
In the most peculiar of ways.

Yet, it is nothing special,
Mama says it is a fact of life.

One must accept a warm kiss,
From cold lips,
The bite of metal cools and warms the skin in the same nanosecond,

The same nanosecond that you see lights and hear laughter and shouts,
All from afar, a dizzying ebb that fades into black,

The ones left behind cry and squabble and grieve,
Their sadness becomes anger and annoyance and too often,
A rotten pillar is revealed,
The center is all gone.

Grief has held me in a time lapse,
A loop that plays over and over again,
One that has me struggling to breathe,
Water floods my sinuses, overflowing from my lungs,my heart, my eyes,
Tis a merciless torture.

Grief, in conjunction with anger,
Forces questions from my lips,
Shakes my fist at a laughing sky, endlessly blue, as if to say, “where’s your colour, your sun?”
Grief pokes holes in my skin, causing me to swell and burst, without pause, without weight.

Grief.
It wrestles the appetite from my body, scythes the smell from my nose and clogs the taste from my nerves.
I am left adrift, washing up against shores that have no names.
Grief.
Renders me helpless.
Reminds me of my frailty.
Points out a way to escape its fiefdom.

Until it comes again.
Some more peculiar than others.

The End.

Photo by Pok Rie on Pexels

Related Articles

Responses

  1. Really a peculiar thing, I dare say a leaving thing. For all it facilitates is loss.

    I’ve seen grief a couple of times; in my mother’s eyes, heard him a number of times before; in my dad’s prayers.

    I’ve held grief in my hands more often that I’d like really, a fist full of air after years of chase, so yeah – I know grief, an acquaintance of mine.