grief is trying to breathe
grief is too soon
grief is no and no and no
grief is feeling a heartbeat stop, gone from beneath your fingers
and breaking the earth in two.
grief is cumulative
grief is one times one is ten
grief is layers of raw-edge concrete,
tightly packed and stacked
sedimentary by day
metamorphic by night.
grief is why why and why
grief is fuck you
grief is midnight pillow cries,
kidnapped stars and moon
grief is unknown sidewalk stains
everyone walks around.
grief is unfixable dents in steel
no one understands
until they absolutely do.
grief is a boulder so heavy
you’d saw off your own heart
just to escape it.
Copyright (c) 2020, Kathy Lynn Harris.
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