A Poem a Day

Keeps the heartache at bay

Tag: grief

  • The Weight of Memories

    The Weight of Memories

    “I will have had to remember you, longer than I have known you.” C.C. Aurel


    That notion alone makes me immeasurably sad.
    Can you imagine the weight of having to carry you with me?
    Knowing you once existed but no longer exist.
    But that’s not true either, is it?
    You exist in me, in my heart and in my memories
    but that will never be enough for me.
    I so long for the physicality of it all; for one last touch, not whispers of a scent that once was.
    How is it possible that the years will trickle by, and I can only carry you with me in my mind.
    I so long to have you back in my arms.
    The space in my heart you occupy is now weighed down carrying the bits and pieces of a soul you left behind.
    I hope you’re comfortable in your new confines
    but oh how I long for you to be free again.
    To be here again.

  • The Sound of Grief

    The Sound of Grief

    “There is no grief like the grief that does not speak” Henry Wadsworth Longfellow


    It’s not so much that grief cannot speak, its moreso that all it does is scream.

    So much so that I’ve learned to block it out,

    Allowing the days to drown it in monotony and routine. But then there are the times it feels like it’s drowning me.

    Holding my head beneath the waves,

    Allowing them to crest in my lungs,

    over and over, until finally, there is reprieve.

    The swelling of a monsoon that drags everything with it.

    The peace of a moment before destruction.

    A shallow breath before it all comes crashing down.

    That’s what grief speaks like, it’s what I hear all the time.

  • The Sound of Existence

    The Sound of Existence

     

    Silence is nothing more that the absence of sound.

    Death is nothing more than the absence of life.

    And what is life, if not sound, feeling, seeing.

    What is life if not tasting, yearning, ongoing.

    Because even in death we do not end.

    Donde hubo fuego, cenizas quedan,

    Where there was once love, an imprint remains.

    On the world, a place, a home, a person or people.

    Is death the absence of life?

    Then what is it that keeps us alive?

    That keeps us going when the goal for us all is to die?

    Isn’t that the pathway to the grand prize?

    How we all arrive at the eternal life promised to us by the word of God?

    Is death the answer to life?

    Does that make life suffering, in turn making death a way out?

    Have we become so sated with questions that we have forgotten to live?

    Was this the curse unleashed from the tree of knowledge, when Eve made the decision to eat?

    Is this endless crisis of existence the fruit that bore of that tree?

    Endless questions and endless dreams.

    If hope was the last thing that remianed in pandora’s box,

    does that not make it a plague all the same?

    If silence is nothing, and death is nothing

    Does that not then mean that within us lies something?

    That in order to fill a space you need more than what physically exists in this space.

    There is life, there is death and there is after, even if the something we were ceases to exist.

  • It’s just a bad day, not a bad life

    How do I even begin to explain? 

    Some days are better than others, 

    And most days, I have good moments

    But not good days.

    It’s like my vocal cords are wrapping themselves around one another

    Constricting my throat so tightly, 

    It’s hard to breathe.

    Being stuck in a hole, and feeling powerless

    As to your survival.

    What else are you supposed to do but sit.

    Wait, talk to the shadows who deem you worthy of conversation.

    Because while you’re stuck in this hole, life, the world,

    They go on without you.

    And say, you manage to escape, 

    Freedom never felt so great, but,

    You don’t know what to do with it.

    You haven’t been around people in so long, that being swarmed scares you shitless,

    Haven’t seen the light of the sun, that its rays are blinding.

    So you go back, and jump into your hole.

    Because your prison became your home, 

    You found understanding, and faced fears in that hole.

    But the laws of life consist of nothing but regeneration.

    You take one away to be replaced with the next one.

    How do I explain how it feels to feel like I do, right now,

    And secretly, all the time.

    Seething. Desperately hopeful,

    Wishing that others can change, that they’ll notice the dirt on your clothes from climbing into that hole every night, and climbing your way back up every morning,

    Before the light reaches the windows of those you thought might notice,

    But they don’t

    No one ever does.

    And that’s okay, I’ve mastered slinking away.

    Lying about the look on my face almost effortlessly.

    And you don’t care, you try not to, but you can’t help it.

    And you notice the dirt on their clothes, and because you know what it feels like to be stuck in a hole, you offer consoling words

    Only to be struck back, lashed at, leave it alone.

    And that’s okay, because you tried and were pushed away, it wasn’t you, 

    Or was it,

    You question and search and maybe you shouldn’t have bothered, maybe they like their hole as much as you like yours.

    But digging yourself out hurts too much at dusk. 

    Blindly seeking hand and foot holds, sliding and reopening scabs that healed from the last falls.

    So you ask, and you talk because you know. 

    But the I’m fines and it’s okays and just forget it, push you further back in that hole. 

    And sometimes you just don’t have the strength to claw yourself out.

    You make dolls out of clay, formed from mud and too many rainstorms.

    And then it rains again and it all fades away.

    But on my good days, the light from the sun doesn’t bother me so much, it lightens me and lifts me up. Dusts me off and sends me on my way.

    My hole, I’ve realized, is a prison, not a safe space. 

    But it’s where I spend most of my time, locked away from ever having to disclose these feelings 

    That, I don’t even know how to explain.

  • Finding Calm in the Chaos

    Finding Calm in the Chaos

    It’s just that,

    Sometimes it feels like I’m drowning. 

    Like, I want to dip my toes in the ocean on a hot summer day,

    But as soon as they touch the water

    A hurricane of wind and rain sweeps me away.

    Most of the time, I’m spinning.

    Being hurled around and around,

    Fighting against the air being pushed into my lungs.

    Sometimes I command the storm.

    The thunder and lightning,

    The tsunamis and monsoons;

    We are one and the same, breathing into one another.

    Other times, I fly into the eye of the storm; floating on silent waves.

    As everything rages away

    All I can do is focus on every breath.

    On, staying afloat until I can swim back to shore.

    I can’t shout, I have to make every breath count.

    I can’t cry, I couldn’t muster up an SOS if I tried.

    And then there are the times I actually make it back to the line between the land and the sea.

    When I realize the only thing damaged in the storm was me.

    I take my time away from the shoreline.

    Away from the waves, and the sun.

    From the calls of the sky, and the horizon.

    Until, inevitably, I find myself back at that line between the land and the sea.

    Between living and existing.

    Inching my toes closer, wondering what the outcome might be this time.

    To see if we might endure the pain of life.

    If we might survive the perils of treading the open waters before us.

    Or if floating, fighting and drowning is all there is to be found.

  • Grieving a Mother and a Friend

    Grieving a Mother and a Friend

    You were once beautiful to me, and now I find myself constantly searching the pain in your face for that beauty.

    I don’t know how to cope with what you’ve lost.

    Not for me, not for you.

    I don’t know how to accept these changes,

    In me, in you.

    I so desperately want to rewind time to relive life close to you.

    I’d gladly suffer through all of the bad of it meant I could also relive all of the good.

    And there was good, right? 

    We were happy most days, even if the dark days loomed above us, behind us, around us.

    But we laughed, we danced, we lived.

    And now, the beauty has dried up, and all that’s left is this husk of you.

    The will to live fled the banshee cries that come out of you.

    I don’t know how to get it to come back.

    I keep trying to gather the smallest pieces of us, but it feels like life is spilling sand through the cracks in our hourglass.

    Some days I wish you were gone, that the present was a wisp of a memory on our timeline and the past a balm to the scars on our hearts.

    I want to rush into tomorrow with open arms to welcome my life back but I can’t seem to hit the ground running.

    Because I want you to be there too.

    I want you to be here now, but everyday we lose more and more of you. 

    I don’t want to hate you, not in the slightest or at all, I just want you back.

    I want it all back the way it was, because you’d smile at me while you chew your food, a knowing smile. 

    One that rosies up your cheeks and makes your eyes twinkle.

    I hate that I hate you, because it’s not you, hasn’t been you in a long while but, sometimes, you look at me and that knowing smile creeps up, tinting your cheeks, letting me see that slight twinkle that shines just for my sisters and me

    And I can almost believe that I still love you and you still love me.

    But then it’s gone, swallowed up by your screams

    Wails of agony that pierce right through me.

    You’re still beautiful to me, even if life right now is really ugly.

    I might hate you right now but it’s not you I hate, it’s this disease.

    This hate exists only because there is so much love for you in me, without a home, without a place to sleep.

    I wish I could give you my strength, my years.

    I wish I could cure you with my tears. 

    I wish I could allay your fears.

    But alas, there is nothing more I can do but shed sweet poetry for you.

  • What is Comfort to an Anxious Mind?

    Free of pain, the easing of grief, the alleviation of distress. 

    I yearn for the comfort I once knew. 

    The tilt of a smile, the tickle of a laugh, the thunder of peace as it washes over you.

    There was a time that comfort was so much more than 

    a rainstorm, the sand between your toes, roaming clouds in a starry night sky.

    Has it always been measured in moments? Sporadic continuous efforts to 

    Hold on to a peace that is fleeting, and yet can alter time to stretch 

    a second into a minute,

    a minute into an hour,

    an hour into a day,

    a day into a lifetime. 

    What would a lifetime of comfort be like? Would grief bow to it?

    Instead of pain, would the thought of a lost loved one bring me serenity?

    Would the thought of their absence in this realm console me?

    Would my days be filled with warm teacups overflowing with coffee? Hot stew on rainy days?

    Would dancing in that rain bring me relief? Would it dull the daily aches of being alive?

    What is comfort to an anxious mind? 

    To calm the panic that is constantly on the rise.

    Three things that are true,

    You are loved, and that love is warm,

    You exist, where there is pain there is life,

    You are in control, all it takes is a thought.

    Three things that I can see,

    My hands with which I create the most beautiful worlds,

    A blank page for those worlds to take shape in,

    A pen, to release whatever form this world chooses to take.

    Three things I can hear,

    The racing of my heart,

    The shallow end of my breath,

    The voice inside my head.

    I am nothing more than a connoisseur of tranquility.

    Measuring all that is and may be harmonious with the turmoil that drives me.

    Seeking solace in the sunsets of the lives that existed before me, 

    The stars that twinkle above me,

    The sliver of wonder in which we all exist in the same lifetime. 

    Can you imagine it, perchance? Can you see the awe the world created when it allowed us to be here together?

    Making creatures of comfort, monsters of habit, and spirits of peace.