Strained Grief

Poetry bleeds from the lips of those whose words can make a difference

My words are not poetry,

They just fly around in a dark room until someone stumbles upon them

And mistakes them for poetry

I want to write about grief in a way that is beautiful yet painful

I want to make metaphors out of thin air, but I can’t breathe these days

I can’t romanticise grief and suffering

It hurts physically, emotionally, and mentally.

Grief is not beautiful, it is not a journey

It painful and never-ending

We only hope that it gets better someday

Until we find something that reminds us of them,

And we break all over again

These days, I don’t even have to look for grief

It is all around me

Every person I turn to is grieving for someone around them

Because help is difficult to find

Impossible if it is an emergency

Words are left unsaid, and breaths are left trapped in windpipes

They choke them and snatch the dreams of everyone

It leaves you with nothing but a broken jar of memories that you are desperately trying to cling on to

You cut yourself on your precious memories

You forget how to be without the one you lost

You try to hope the one you could lose holds on better

And you are caught in a tug of war with life

Hoping, pleading, crying

Just wishing it would let at least this one live

I can’t sit and talk about grief in pretty metaphors

I can’t stain the broken glass and make it look beautiful

The grief I see these days,

It is like an infected wound caused by a rusted serrated knife

It hurts and burns, and you watch the poison travel up veins

It leaves you with an ache in your bones as your throat closes up

You want to scream but your voice has given up

Your tears have run dry, and you still can’t process it

You sit on your bed saying “what?” till you can make the ringing in your head stop

But it doesn’t

It just never seems to stop

I see grief wreck us apart

Make us feel pain like we have never felt before

Leave us breathless and out of control

Helpless

Like those on beds with tubes attached to them

Hoping and praying they make it out alive

And I want to be angry

Angry at the doctors for not doing enough

Until I realise that they are doing all they can

So, I get angry at an incompetent government that can’t enforce protocols

That guzzles money without accountability

That is so caught up in its pettiness that it cannot focus on the matter at hand

A government so incompetent at its job that it tells its citizens to do the work it

But most of all,

I mourn,

I mourn for those who are gone

I mourn for those who could be gone

And I mourn for myself because I can picture myself

Just as helpless, just as out of breath, and just as pained

As those who are out there fighting while I,

I sit and write angry words out of my grief that I can’t channel properly.