A Poem

1 minute read

Grief sits like decay
in the bottom of my lungs
where the light of day
doesn’t shine.

Shallow breaths can’t
reach the pools it’s become—
Petri dishes
bubbling with lost time.

My lungs threaten to collapse —
Longing for more breath,
they wring the last of air:
a self-inflicted death.

It wasn’t my intention to die,
but grief has taken over —
My mind, my well-being,
crumble under its pressure.

The hurt keeps multiplying
a black, tarry substance
invading innocent tissue,
festering like disease.

As I wonder, if the stridor
I heard in my lungs last week
was just another one
of my body’s pleas.

To let go of the grief —
The ugly, sad, tumultuous
black pockets
of dis-ease.

It’s difficult to separate
Death’s clingy shadow
from my heart,
both which envelop you.

Instead, I brace
for the physical ailments
the incessant pains,
the bodily aches.

As my mind reminds me to,
“Do the right thing.”
“Take care of you.”
Eat, sleep, hydrate, walk.

Seems simple, but when
the all-consuming side of grief
infiltrates me,
I don’t see it so clearly.

It is those days without choice,
I wade into the murky pools
and sit in my grief.
I wait for your light.

Warmth overcomes my senses.
It is only when I surrender,
that I know what to do:
I begin to wait for me, too.

My ailments are a byproduct
of insurmountable grief,
but I am not who they are,
and they are not me.

The Physical Ailments of Grief