GRIEF Poem: The Weight of What Remains, by Brandon Roy

Grief is an echo
a sound that circles back
slipping through hollow trees
or the hinge of a door
that sighs but never shuts.

It lingers
thick as wood smoke clinging to walls
sharp as rain on sunburned ground.
An open window offers air
but the breeze carries nothing
only the hollow weight
of absence.

Grief is the weight of loose ends
a shoelace dragging in mud
a sentence left mid-breath
a jar of honey gone hard in the cupboard.

You press against it
try to hide it
slip it beneath the floorboards
where its hum still finds you.
It stretches
casting long shadows
changing shape when you re not looking.

One day it places a feather in your hand.
Light unbroken.
Not a gift
but a reminder
that something fragile remains.
That you remain.

Grief doesn’t disappear.
It softens
folding into the faraway sound of a train
or the smudge of breath
on a winter window.
It leaves its mark
quietly
not fading
but no longer a weight.