This is how your grief will look at you:
In the seconds after it happens, you feel the world turning on its head and you're still standing upright, face forwards, when everything seems to have reversed and slowed down. Your mind insists that you have not changed, the world has. Your heart insists that the world doesn't exist, only you do. Both are trying to convince you, that you have not become forlorn, the world is just broken. But your mind is lying and so is your heart.
Four days after you have picked yourself up from the floor where you have been since it happened, your mother has already visited twice and said, “Listen, things will get better. You just have to let them,” and “We can help you,” and “Please.” Words seem hollow, but you feel more hollow than any words, hearing the way they echo and disappear inside you.
A week after you have forgotten to sleep, forgotten to dream, forgotten how to communicate in the way those around you still can. You wonder what breathing without your heart breaking looks like. You wonder what words without the taste of death feel like. You wonder what the universe is trying to tell you through all this. But you never ever wonder if things get better. Because you are sure they never do.
A month slowly trickles away, the way water does when it is collecting in a bucket from a dripping ceiling. You're still here. This surprises you more than anything else. Because if you are still here, then you are still breathing, despite your best efforts to will your soul away from this broken body.
It's been three months and people have sounded like a stuck record about this for so long, everything is now on autopilot. Get up, shower, get to work, forget to eat, work some more, come home, sometimes remember to eat, go to bed. The routine is numb, but then again, that is why it is comfortable.
The thing with numbness is, it gets into your skin, travels down your veins and into your heart.
The thing with grief is, it never completely goes away, no matter how numb you are.
In the seconds after it happens, you feel the world turning on its head and you're still standing upright, face forwards, when everything seems to have reversed and slowed down. Your mind insists that you have not changed, the world has. Your heart insists that the world doesn't exist, only you do. Both are trying to convince you, that you have not become forlorn, the world is just broken. But your mind is lying and so is your heart.
Four days after you have picked yourself up from the floor where you have been since it happened, your mother has already visited twice and said, “Listen, things will get better. You just have to let them,” and “We can help you,” and “Please.” Words seem hollow, but you feel more hollow than any words, hearing the way they echo and disappear inside you.
A week after you have forgotten to sleep, forgotten to dream, forgotten how to communicate in the way those around you still can. You wonder what breathing without your heart breaking looks like. You wonder what words without the taste of death feel like. You wonder what the universe is trying to tell you through all this. But you never ever wonder if things get better. Because you are sure they never do.
A month slowly trickles away, the way water does when it is collecting in a bucket from a dripping ceiling. You're still here. This surprises you more than anything else. Because if you are still here, then you are still breathing, despite your best efforts to will your soul away from this broken body.
It's been three months and people have sounded like a stuck record about this for so long, everything is now on autopilot. Get up, shower, get to work, forget to eat, work some more, come home, sometimes remember to eat, go to bed. The routine is numb, but then again, that is why it is comfortable.
The thing with numbness is, it gets into your skin, travels down your veins and into your heart.
The thing with grief is, it never completely goes away, no matter how numb you are.
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