Grief Notes

Days
 
I wake up
Disappointed that I’m still alive
But I get up and brush my teeth
Shower sometimes
Light a candle and weep
For a while at her altar,
 
Make tea and meditate
Go about my solemn day
Trying to fathom the pain
Loneliness and fear
Trying to see a future beyond
The gloomy uncertainty
That makes me wish again for sleep
From which I’ll awaken
Disappointed that I’m still alive.

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I am scared to go to sleep. Not because of the nightmares and claustrophobic dreams, but because it is even scarier to wake up and remember it all anew.


I walked up to Council Crest today. It was good to get out. It was so hard coming home. I am not sure what home is anymore.


I feel like I can’t do this anymore. I’m so tired. I’m so angry. I am so overwhelmed. I don't know what to do or where to go. I want only to forget.


On rare days, I trick myself into believing that I will survive this. Today was not one of those days.


It has been eight months. There are times when it feels like eight seconds, times when it feels like eight years.


The Chagall windows at the Art Institute of Chicago are stunningly beautiful. We fell in love with them when we first saw them three years ago. Today I broke down and wept openly and audibly in front of them. The kind museum guard asked me if I was okay. I nodded. That was a lie.


It should have been me
You were stronger than me
You were braver than me
You were smarter than me
You were better than me
It should have been me
One day it will be me and
You will welcome me with open arms
I look forward to that


I’m lost
I’m broken
I’m failing
I’m falling
Apart


Pretty sky this evening
Four hummingbirds at one feeder
At the same time,
And a mosquito

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Equinox
 
mackerel sky and
another dose of morphine
nights getting longer
 
 
Angel
 
Blue evening weeps outside
Tearful melancholy
Gone angel on my mind
 
 
Blue Moon
 
One more empty night
Lone candle at her altar
A cold silent moon
 
 
Wind
 
River music and raven song
Sagebrush daydreams
The wind doesn’t care if I wail


Flower
 
Deep well of sorrow
Tries to pull me down then
I remember a flower

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Calm
 
I feel a strange calm picturing
My own bleaching bones
Glistening
Undisturbed
Beneath the immensity,
The indifferent desert sky.
I will be with her again.

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Exiled
 
I can be happy for others, but not for myself. I should be exiled to the desert. A shack in the canyonlands, a horse, a place for a garden. Days of ancient ruins and solitude. Nights of weeping, blue stars and icy planets. A cold spring not too far away, not too close. Effort is necessary but being tired is so exhausting. I want to leave off where I began, at the end.