Funerals
I’ve decided
Are for the living.
When someone dies
They pass the pain in their life onto the people left behind.
And when you lose someone you love,
Every little task
Is energy draining
and life sucking.
It’s a war to think,
And a battle to feel.
And reality comes in little waves
And fully submerge you and you’ll drown.
And the harder you fight,
The harder it is to breathe and to think and to just
Be.
And then every little memory builds up until they all crash and suddenly
There is a hole in the shape of them in your heart.
Your world goes colorless
All emotions and feelings are stripped from your everyday life.
The sound of their name
Rolling off of someone’s tongue
Puts a lump in your throat and tears in your eyes
but you smile,
And pretend everything is all right.
Because everything is.
You only grieve when there is nobody to see you at your most vulnerable,
To see you heave and shake
Until your knees buckle and everything blurs
And you have to focus on
In…. and out
In… and out
Because suddenly,
It has became in out in out in out and the room is shaking
And the world is spinning
And it hits you
Like the ground does when you walk down the stairs
Missing the last step,
That this was how they felt.
Because before you lost them,
They lost themselves.
And all of your unused love for them disintegrates into grief and hate
Hate for not doing anything when it crossed your mind
Hate for not reminding them that they were so loved
Hate
For not saving their life
Because you were too blind to see they were drowning.
Grief is the price we must all pay for love
We need to have both to truly appreciate love
And truly feel grief,
Because I think deep down
Grief is just expired love.
So we take all of our expired love,
Dress like death,
And prove that we will love again
With each shiny teardrop
That streams down our trembling cheeks
Every time someone we love falls
Like a leaf from on orange oak tree
On a brisk October morning.