GRIEF Poem: “What Every Survivor Should Know”, by Kayleigh Marr

A casual Sunday morning sitting on a porch swing, their mother’s name on your phone. You
answer, lose your breath knowing he wanted to lose his.

The smell hits as soon as the automatic doors open:
clinical, clean, cold.

The little blue chairs in the little blue room around the corner are not comfortable. Nothing is:
your chair, your body, your mind.

People walk in and walk out, last names breaking the silence of broken families. You’re waiting
to become the next victim of the man in the white coat.

You begin pacing, running. There’s nowhere to run too, no neon exit sign. You’re running stuck
in your little blue chair.
The repetitive beeps go silent. Silent like a piercing gunshot, silent like a Sunday morning spent
reading a suicide note.

The ringing in your ears breaks a silent mind, tears trapped in a soundproof tank. Mouth sewn
shut from the shot of a bullet.

Get out of bed, brush your teeth, work, eat, sleep, repeat. Keep the opening to your mouth
hidden, lost in the mazes of the walls you built.

You’re still running, running till running turns to swimming, swimming to drowning. Drowning
in a mind-shaped box, grief the lock, dead the key.

The little blue chair is empty now, still facing the door waiting on a return that will never come.
The room is silent, the only noise a echo of a unspoken name, you become silent too.