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| a photo I snapped over a decade ago in Genève |
“Grief is subversive, undermining the quiet agreement to behave and be in control of our emotions. It is an act of protest that declares our refusal to live numb and small. There is something feral about grief, something essentially outside the ordained and sanctioned behaviors of our culture. Because of that, grief is necessary to the vitality of the soul. Contrary to our fears, grief is suffused with life-force.... It is not a state of deadness or emotional flatness. Grief is alive, wild, untamed and cannot be domesticated. It resists the demands to remain passive and still. We move in jangled, unsettled, and riotous ways when grief takes hold of us. It is truly an emotion that rises from the soul.”
― Francis Weller
Sometimes I feel I owe people an explanation. Whether people want to know or care is dubious but if you've landed here maybe you'll find out. In the last ten years I've lost almost my entire family. I am a third generation only child and I was raised by the people I've lost. My grandparents were like my parents. The three people I was closest to in my family are gone, plus a few others. Relationships have come and gone too. Now a pandemic while living alone. To say I know grief would be an understatement.
The reasons I choose to live change over time. It used to be art or because my father/grandparents/girlfriend loved me, but now they're gone so it's my work, my cats, and my friends. One day those too will be gone and I'll define my life by others. I'm not trying to be dramatic--it merely is the case that everything you love you will one day lose. "It is a holy thing to love what Death can touch."
My Spotify Playlist Grieve
but it doesn't seem fair, ya know
I can't even define and
there you are
right there
in the meantime."
To love
What death can touch.
To love, to hope, to dream,
And oh, to lose.
A thing for fools, this,
Love,
But a holy thing,
To love what death can touch.
For your life has lived in me;
Your laugh once lifted me;
Your word was a gift to me.
To remember this brings painful joy.
‘Tis a human thing, love,
A holy thing,
To love
What death can touch.
Pandemic Poems
Mud Monster
to transcend
mud or darkness
or my inner swamp monster
I don’t have a great voice
or musical training
but I sing
now
because
Grief makes you courageous
The Worst
already happened
(they died, they left me, etc)
and yet you know
it will happen again
Grief is crying through
cheerful Beatles songs
your father loved
and laughing at the irony
Grief is the giant trashcan
where I threw away
petty
and took home
profound
anger, sorrow, numbness
and random electronics
Grief is tortuous:
it comes in flights
instead of stages;
here anew
iteration of that emotion
slightly different from
yesterday’s last week’s
last year’s last decade
Grief is a noisy silence
and joy has become the deafening
silence of knowing what it is
to be truly alive
Grief tears out
pages from my journal
and incinerates
old flames and worries
become deeded to the past
Grief is the longest crescendo,
the beat’s steepest drop,
and it is the unmerciful
lingering adagio
Grief is the language
I speak with the trees
and the prayers
they taught me
Grief lets you write
shitty poems
about grief and not care
and grief keeps you
from writing
about them
for years
wearing their old shoes and hats
and never crying
because I ran out of tears
Grief is Why
———
They’re Gone
the electricity in my body
refused to to let me
forget
They are gone.
They’re gone
when I awake in the morning
They’re gone when I drink my coffee
They’re gone when I get in my car
They’re gone when I walk into work
They’re gone when I saw someone else
with theirs and I was reminded
They’re gone when I’m crying afterwards
They’re gone when I’m going home
They’re gone when I’m eating dinner
They’re gone when I’m using the bathroom
They’re gone when I look in the mirror
They’re gone when I fall asleep
Their purple withered faces
again in my dreams
and I’m crying harder than possible
awoken sobbing
I’m eating a breakfast of tears
and I’m laughing through the salt
after making myself go to the gym
Years spent grieving
are the years I workout most
because I need the dopamine
Years spent grieving
gave me shoulders
to bear the load
But I’m crying again
when someone mentions
their home, family, parents, siblings
they cannot fathom the strength
to be on
your own
Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow
No more smiles
from strangers
or hugs so tight
we can hardly breathe
one day a child will ask me
how I managed during these
times my mirror is the only person
I’ve haven’t seen for days
the mountains for the smoke
or faces for the masks
when I was a child
I often had no one
to play with
to talk to
to be
with me
except cats
I’ll tell them it was my cats
and generosity
from my friends and professors
and ice cream.