GRIEF Poem: Schrodinger’s Box, by Audrey White

The first stage of Grief is Denial,
In which the subject cannot come to terms with the reality of their loss,
Though many chalk it up simply to a sense of shock or disbelief it is far deeper than that.

Consider Schrodinger’s Cat,
The now famous thought experiment that explores the theory that unless an object is observed it
can be in two state of being at the same time,

So if a cat were placed in a box with something that could potentially kill it,
It would be both alive and dead at the same time until the box was opened and the cat could be
observed.

Now,
Consider the aftermath.

How long will he wait to open the box?

Does he open it immediately?
Does he rip off the band-aid and move on?
Or does he let it sit on the kitchen table,
Staring at it,
Filled with dread but too afraid of what he might find when he opens it.

Does he wait until the middle of the night?
When he already feels so wretched and rotten so he might as well open it?

Does he wait until a guest brings it up,
Asking about the strange box behind his sofa?

Does he shove food into the crack ,
Hoping on some off chance it would keep it alive?

Or does he never open it?

Maybe he leaves it shut long after it would have died anyway.

How long does Orpheus wait until he looks back at Eurydice?
Until he opens that box and knows for sure the death doesn’t become real for him.

Until that box is opened there is some state in which his cat is alive,
even if only in his own mind.

It is the beginning of the end,
It is denial,
It is grief.