GRIEF Poem: Things I Never Got to Grieve, by Meg Taylor

You can’t bury someone who still walks.
Not really.
You just carry them,
like a stone in your throat
you’ve trained yourself not to choke on.

I was only a child who finally spoke,
her only response was no Christmas for you,
like joy was a leash
and I’d finally pulled too hard.

I didn’t cry.
I calcified.
Everyone says grief is love with nowhere to go,
but what do you call it
when the person still has a phone number?
A pulse?

She was never mine.
Not really.
She loved others
but me, she avoided
because I saw too much.
I stood too tall in her shadow.
Wouldn’t shrink.

The last time we spoke,
I told her I loved her.
I meant it like a eulogy.
Then I let the silence close like soil.

I grieve her still.
Not as a mother.
As the ache
of having one
who never knew how.