GRIEF Poem: “Good Grief”, by Meghan Kathleen

The crack in the surface of a shell

The awakening that your resilience cannot keep you here

The anticipation grows a fever until it is something nameless and running across a sunset you thought was home

Your sensitivity as a child was always passed off as a faceless creature

But now that it is grown, you wonder if you manifested this darkness into reality by waiting patiently for the fall of a foot’s shield

The crack in the morning sky is a reminder that not all are weeping, half alive, drowning in an ocean of solitude

Not all are still surviving and exhausted as you

You are a woman but no this grief has turned you into a child, hasn’t it?

You are just a thing with rage and sorrow, stumbling into your mother’s arms and praying once more for a miracle

The crack in all you know has bared its teeth

And here you are learning to live again

Learning how to breathe against a fire of loss

How trauma becomes all you can relate to, all you can answer to, all your bones understand

How the normalcy of even a morning coffee feels foreign against your lips