Grief
Forty-seven years, a lifetime woven tight,
A rhythm shared that anchored every day,
Then suddenly, they vanished from the sight,
And left you in a world turned cold and gray.
Thirteen years of silence, long and vast,
With no instruction manual for this ache,
No roadmap for the shadows that were cast,
No steady hand for every step you’d take.
You lived in quiet exile, unequipped,
While time moved forward, heart still held in place,
And then, the sudden seal of silence ripped—
A voice returns to offer empty space.
They claim they heard the words you spoke before,
Though thirteen years they kept their spirit shut,
And now they stand upon your threshold, door
Ajar, while you are deep within a rut.
How do you build a bridge where trust has burned?
How do you let them in when walls are tall?
You learned to be a ghost, a lesson learned,
To walk alone so you would never fall.
You say you do not handle change with grace,
That patterns are the armor you have worn,
And now, with this intruding, ghostly face,
You feel your fragile, quiet life is torn.
They claim they know you—know your jagged edges,
The way you shrink from shifts in tide and wind,
But trust is not a vow upon the ledges
Of promises that come so long rescind.
Where do you go? The earth is strange and wide,
Your compass broken since the one you loved is gone.
You drift within a slow and lonely tide,
Wondering how the world expects you to move on.
Perhaps the path is not to trust the tongue
That stayed so silent through your deepest need,
But trust the heart that kept the memory young,
The one that did not falter, did not bleed.
You do not have to fit into their frame,
Or bow to changes forced upon your door;
You only need to whisper your own name,
And find the quiet strength you held before.
If they truly know you, let them learn to wait,
To watch the distance that you need to mend,
For grief is not a lock upon a gate,
And healing is a journey, not a trend.
You are not lost because you stand apart,
You’re simply holding what remains of true—
The sanctity of that long-forty-seven-year heart,
And the pieces that belong, at last, to you.
Grief.