I am a blue jeans blue eyes kind of girl.
You are a brown leather jacket brown eyes kind of boy.
We both love falling into the depths of books.
You can’t get enough of everything from history to the wardrobe leading to Narnia, but romance has never really been your thing.
I can’t get enough of the spark between holding hands and eye contact for just a little too long in all the romantic stories.
But you tell me, you might be able to read it for me.
I tell you, I can try and branch out in what I read for you.
We seem to go together so easily.
You didn’t flinch, when I showed you my scars. I didn’t shut my eyes, when you showed me yours.
If I could count all the ways I love you
I would try to write it all in my poetry.
If you could count all the ways you love me
you would try to play it in all your songs.
But the very thing is there is no need to count it, because
I just love you. And. You just love me.
Thats enough for the both of us.
He hugged his daughter and wife, tightly.
His daughter and wife boarding, the doors closing, the plane ascending, the terrorists plotting.
His raised hand waved goodbye,
unknowing, ignorant, clueless,
as to what would happen.
He turned to leave, his body now in another’s hold, the chloroform soaked rag at his mouth, while everything went black.
He awoke to find his body now in chains, shackled.
His head raised, the terrorists revealed, the computer screen on, the chains unyielding.
His entire being writhed,
fight, flight, fear,
pumping in adrenaline.
His anger flamed in his chest, the terrorists laughed at his flippant struggles, mirth lining their features.
He asked what they wanted, enraged.
Their irking voices spoke, their instructions clear, their eyes hardened, their guns cocked.
Their demands warranted confusion,
listen, learn, look,
at the camera footage shown on the screen.
He did as told, his eyes seeing the context of the screen, his wife and daughter, strapped on the plane with a bomb.
His heartbeat rang in his ears, erratic.
His daughter crying, his wife glaring, the terrorists terrorizing, the bomb ticking.
His family was at the terrorists mercy,
furor, terror, horror,
surged through his body.
He roared, veins popped from his forehead, a muzzle was dug into his skull, he had to protect his family.
He watched as it happened right before his eyes, helpless.
The ticking bomb erupting, the terrorists smiling wickedly, the plane descending, his wife and daughter dead.
His bound body shook,
fury, loss, vengeance,
all at the forefront of his mind.
He shut his eyes, no longer able to withstand the sight of the black camera footage, while corrupted laughter filled his ears.
New strength coarsed through him, rapidly.
The chains fell, the bullets flew, the terrorists blood spilled, the sirens sounded.
He did not spare one,
blood, sweat, death,
stained his clothes.
The police came, their faces astounded, revenge had been served, yet everything within him still felt dead.
You must understand, the moment I heard of your death my heart fell out of my chest.
It fell to the ground, and like a tender piece of fruit, it bruised.
My own two hands were wiping the globs of tears rolling down my face, with a searing hiss they burned my skin.
Grief was the one who picked my heart up off the dirt, and gave it a home.
It held my bruised bloody heart, like a piece of fruit, up to the light. Grief didn’t flinch at the sight of it.
Instead it savored the leaking juice of pain that fell from my heart, and with two hands Grief crushed my heart.
I wailed and I screamed and none of it mattered, because you were gone.
You are gone.
Grief holds my heart captive. When it has hurt for too long, Grief is tender and comforts my bleeding, beating heart.
Oh, and when I ignore it, Grief forces me to remember, and rips a bight out of my heart as it’s juicy pain drips down the arm of Grief.
I can barely breath with the weight of Griefs grip.
What am I supposed to do! I have never been taught how to grieve! I have never been taught what to do with it!
When it gets too much my heart is like a rotten fruit, and I am nauseous, physically nauseous.
All I know is to barf out tears and feel the bruising pain. For comfort and tenderness I don’t allow myself to feel. Because it is so much.
I love, I love you. You are gone.
Where do I put my love for you?
Grief has given my heart back to me. I am sitting here with my crumpled, rotten heart, still somehow beating, in my grimy hands.
And I miss you. And I love you.
In all this bloody mess, I am starting to see the good.
Jesus asks me for my heart, I give it freely to Him.
Its healed the moment His fingers brush against it.
With all my heart I hate that you died, but I know you are very much alive.
You are very much alive, and very much in peace.
I know this because the One who created me and you
is holding you in His arms. I see you.
I see you alive and so peaceful. I see you breathing. I see you in the arms of the One whom I love most.
He holds my hand and He gives me comfort.
It still aches and aches, yet He sits with me in the pain of your death.
I am not alone. Our good, good Father is here with us.
I am just so, so very sad. I didn’t want you to die.
Yet I could ask for nothing greater, than for you to experience no pain, and the love of the Father for all eternity.
Grief is a fickle thing.
It has such a different, unidentifiable shape compared to love, sadness, anger.
I can hold love in my heart, cradle it even. I know what it is.
I can allow myself to feel sadness, and nurture it with my tears. It is familiar.
I can throw my fists in the air holding my anger by the throat, feeding it all the more. I remember its poison in my mouth.
Grief hits you in so many different ways, in so many different moments, with so many different triggers.
I can shove it in the closet in the back of my mind and still feel loss, while being burdened by the immense weight of it.
Grief will wrap its hands around my heart and squeeze and squeeze until I am crying blood, yet afterwards it will be tender to me. My grief will brush my tears aside, sitting heavy within me, and then it will be lighter, bearable, for a while.
As often as I am able I push it away, gyving the grief to my will. This does not last long, but at least I can breathe for a moment. I will beat it to the ground until it is complacent.
I will feel all my grief later, when I can fall apart without falling to pieces.
And everything is manageable, I may even smile.
It is when I am in a crowed room, and I have never missed you more.
Grief hangs over my shoulders. I am alone without you here. I am in great, great pain.
I am standing here dying while living all the more, yet nothing shows except for my red cracked eyes.
All these people around me don’t know of your absence and my grief is killing me, yet no one even notices.
You’re fine. You’re fine. You’re fine.
And then for the first time in weeks you truly laugh. You don’t feel the lingering weight of grief of your shoulders. You laughter carries through the heartache and the pain.
But you look over to see their beautiful face laughing with yours, and reality comes crashing back down again. They are not there.
It hurts all over again, like a fresh wound.
How could you be happy when they
are gone?
You hate yourself for forgetting their absence. You hate yourself for being happy without them there.
Your love has nowhere to go.
It hurts. It aches. It doesn’t stop bleeding.
Then it gets easier, for a while, you partner with ignorance to get by.
You are going on just fine,
even as your heart is bleeding from the inside out,
and you are fine for days, weeks, months.
You carry the grief as a part of your body, while not acknowledging what it is actually doing to you.
Then it hits you. You are doing the most mundane thing and you wish they were there with you.
You feel robbed and stabbed
all over again.
Your chest is heaving for air, lungs constricting, collapsing, you haven’t breathed a full breath since they’ve been gone.
No matter how many times this happens you still have plenty more tears to dry you out.
Then you are exhausted and you don’t let yourself feel, because it is too much.
It is so much.
But you don’t face it every day. You don’t face it at all. Not until it hits you like a train.
I narrow my eyes focusing on the horizon. There are so many fulfilled dreams and desires, just laying there.
I allow my eyelids to fall shut. Wind sweeps my hair into my face, as it howls with a broken cry. I am not there yet, but I will be.
Despite the looming gray clouds and the harrowing feeling in my chest, hopeful sun rays break through the sky, beaconing me to take
another step.
Though what lies in front of me is the edge of a cliff and a thousand feet below.
My toes are inches away from the edge, inches away from death.
I take a step back, dizziness causing my head to spin, nausea roiling inside of me.
Between me and my dreams is the cliff of heartache, an ocean grief and sorrow, a valley of the past, and the mountain of healing.
If I take another step I will fall, and I I have never been one for heights.
If I stay here I will never reach what I have longed for
for my entire life.
With no other choice left
I
take
a step forward.
If your hand could reach inside my heart, what would you do with it?
If I held it out for you to touch pulsing, pumping, beating with life, could I trust you?
It is a raw bloody thing, yet even in all its tenderness it is strong.
I have given it to people who did not give a care, while I still did.
And I have bled and bled and bled, so much.
And still, I refuse to regret any of it. I refuse to be hardened by hurt.
You can crush my heart with your bare hands, and I will cry out in snarling pain.
You must understand, enduring pain is what has made me resilient, so I will still continue to be soft.
I am asking you, could you be gentle and soft with my heart?
It is strong, but oh, I am so tired of hurting. Please, be soft with your touch.
This is all I ask. Don’t flinch at its scars. Don’t judge its ripe bruising.
I care for you, so here I am, here it is. Please my love, be kind.
Your life here with me was like a poem.
One classic beginning filled with a terrifying beauty.
One classically ending, just like that, with a guttural, tangible pain.
Oh! Your story had barely been written, barely been given breath to its words.
In the womb you lived.
In the womb you died.
I loved you, before you, my darling poem, were written.
I love you still, after you, my darling poem, had so much left to be written.
I stared into my father’s red rimmed eyes, and I knew.
He is dead. My baby brother is dead.
I had really believed with every damn fiber of my being he wouldn’t die.
No. No. No.
Grief grips me by the throat. It’s hands
squeeze and squeeze
until I have no more tears left to stain my skin with sorrow.
My heart has fallen out of my chest. With every breath the pain only gets heavier and heavier. The weight crushes me like a bug.
My mother doesn’t know what to do with herself.
Her grief is horribly, horribly silent.
Though, what are you supposed to do when your beloved child dies inside your own stomach?
I never met him. I never even saw him. How can the pain be so, so crushing?
Each day it is still heavy. It still hurts.
I never wanted
to bleed to burn
like this, yet here I am.
This is something you carry with yourself for your whole life.
I am strong. I am strong. Oh, but this? This has made me weak.
