The City called Grief

“Hey sis,” His words hung soft in the thick air, gentle, like he was already beginning to lose his voice from all the pent up emotion floating beneath his diaphragm.

 I didn’t know what to say. And it wasn’t for a lack of desire, because I wanted more than anything to have the right words, but the same reason I assume most people say nothing, which is because I was terrified of saying the wrong thing. I was terrified of entering into this raw, broken place and what it would do to me, and to him. In that moment, more than anything, I wished I was brave. But even with as much time as I have spent hopping from one dark place to another, I have yet to become so familiar with it that I could draw a map with the way out of it. Maybe because the entire city is just a street of dead ends and back alleys, and there is no way out. It sounds hopeless, and awful, but I think sooner or later you find comfort in the darkness of it all, in the absolute destruction. There’s something familiar about the broken slants on the front porch and the cob webs hanging from the rafters, the streets that have never been paved and are full of ruts, and the musty smell that wafts in from every direction. Once you have familiarized yourself with darkness, with grief, even though it is unwelcome it is familiar and it is lightness, pure joy, that seems like an intruder.

 I spent months yelling at the sun because it dared to shine, at the birds because somehow they still had a song to sing while the only noise I could make was the one where my heart repeatedly slammed into my rib cage, reminding me I was still alive when I didn’t want to be.

 I wanted the world to stop turning, wanted to not habitat the condemned building in the darkest corner of the city called grief, wanted to not feel like my heart was on fire. I wanted to feel normal again.

 I know now there is no such thing as normal. Maybe I should have learned that ages ago. There is no secret back road that will take you out of this city. There is no road map, no survival manual, and no emergency number to call in case things get clouded along the way, and they will. This is a solitary journey, and one you never asked to be a part of. There is nothing I can say that will help you settle in to your new accommodations in a city you never asked to live in.

 And so I will sit across from you in this bar called blackness and ask you if you want another drink. We will listen to Grace Potter and maybe sing bad karaoke and make dark jokes.

Because this I can do.

Time

Sometimes you don't get all the time in the world, but maybe, if you're lucky, you get enough
Enough time to grow up
To own up
To mess up and start over (and over, and over)
time to fall in love (and fall in love again)
to laugh until your stomach hurts
to be brave
to let yourself be loved
to make memories that will last a lifetime
to find your home
to belong
to create
to dream
to heal




"I cannot tell you how thankful I am for our little infinity. I wouldn't trade it for the world. You gave me a forever within the numbered days, and I'm grateful.”  

Thanks for the memories

Today was my last high school English class, and I found myself getting slightly sentimental
We sat there in our desks discussing Hamlet and grammar and I wanted to be the one to scream "Remember this."
Remember this because I never thought it would happen but it did and now it's here and it's beautiful and I never want to let it go.
I wanted champagne. I wanted toasts and balloons and pictures. I wanted speeches and moments I can hang on my wall.
Instead I got smiles and laughter and the way his eyes sparkled and I willed myself not to forget a single moment of it.
I want to stay like this forever. In this place where I know there will always be a twinkling eye to greet me every morning, and that even if I don't want to I will laugh. Sometimes there will be embarrassing pictures on my phone. Sometimes there will be cartoons on the side of my homework that I didn't draw there. Sometimes I will be annoyed with these people as much as I enjoy them, and sometimes I will experience both in the same breath.
But at the end of the day we had this. We had this room, and this class, and each other. And maybe I'm the crazy one for wanting to hold on to this for as long as I possibly can.
I know I can't keep it clenched between my fists, that moving on is inevitable.
And maybe all this is was a shout into the void, but it was something. I have to believe it was something. It won't last and it's built on teenage emotion and being shoved in a classroom together for an hour a day, five days a week, but it's something.
 When I entered this class, I never expected to find what I did. I learned Shakespeare, and that people are amazing. If you let them, they'll surprise you.
In this moment, we are beautiful.
In this moment, I swear we are infinite.

Five Minute Friday: Hands

 When I saw the prompt for this Friday, I knew I had to write something. Because this morning I found myself staring at a pair of hands, and creating a story with mine.
There is so much more I could write on this topic, but given only 5 minutes I could just skim the surface. But I want to keep creating, keep writing stories with my own hands.
My hands were made to touch, to create, to explore the world around me and fall more in love with it with each passing day

I look at his hands as I sit behind my computer screen, typing out an English essay on kindness. It’s not much, but the gentle curve of his fingers is prompt enough to begin a train of thought.

I am reminded of all the places I’ve been, the people I’ve loved, the gentle touches and soft glances. I remember the feeling of being found the first time he looked at me, and how that was a feeling I wanted to spend my whole life remembering. The feeling of found, I wrote that day, is not something I take lightly.

My own fingers are sprawling over the keyboard as I begin to write about kindness, giving it and receiving it and how sometimes you have to dig it up out of yourself. I wrote about it and I watched his fingers and I was reminded of the first day, when I didn’t feel so very kind, and all the different sets of hand prints that make up my story now.


If you peel back my skin and expose my heart, I am also certain you would find sets of fingerprints, all unique but splashed together to create a beautiful piece of art. These are the fingerprints given to me, the stories and touches and smiles I have used to create something beautiful. They are my poetry, my inspiration, my heart beat. They are the words I have created with my own hands.


I think there is something beautiful about hands, and the way they can create and move and touch and express.


With this, I begin to write

The Heart of Life

It doesn’t matter how tough we are, trauma always leaves a scar. It follows us home, it changes our lives. Trauma messes everybody up, but maybe that’s the point. All the pain & the fear & the crap, maybe going through all that is what keeps us moving forward. It’s what pushes us. Maybe we have to get a little messed up before we can step up.


I've been writing a lot recently about trauma. About the intricate way the Universe works together, the soft hum it makes that you can hear if you listen closely and press your face to the ground. I think it sounds like holy ground.
I've been pulled to the idea of human nature, and have seen the brutality of it all that has left me lacking in the belief that people are still good.
When life hits you hard so many times, I think sometimes the easiest thing to do is just stay there.
I wrote yesterday that I want to stay here, with my face pressed to the ground, trying to hear the hum of the holy above the noise that is created.
It is easier to believe in the good down here, I reasoned.
The noise of the world threatened to overcome me. I tasted bitterness beneath my tongue, tasted pain and hurt every time I licked my lips.
And so I put out a status on social media, asking people what the kindest thing someone has done for them was, or what was the kindest thing they did for someone else.
The responses trickled in, one by one.
Baby showers, pictures, vacations, organ donation.
I let it all fill me with the belief that there are still good and beautiful people in this world.
The pain exists, but so does the beauty. So does the good. And I believe you see what you look for. There are days when it is so easy just so succumb to the desperation and taste the dirt. I know this. I have lived in this place, with my ear pressed to the earth listening to the world until I have the strength to live in it again.
But there is also beauty, and it is finding it in these hard days that it matters the most. It reminds me that people are still good. Life is still beautiful. This world is still a good place to live.


Pain throws your heart to the ground
Love turns the whole thing around
No it won't all go the way it should
But I know the heart of life is good