I Can’t Do Funeral

I can’t do funeral  

My body forgets how to behave

How to fold itself into the quiet  

Everyone else seems to understand

I can’t do the soft voices

The way people talk like grief  

Is something fragile  

That might crack if held too tightly

I can’t do the flowers

Too bright

Too alive 

Too loud against the truth  

That someone I love  

Isn’t here to see them bloom

I can’t do the stories  

Told like they’re smoothing out the Pain 

Turning a whole life  

Into something gentle enough  

For the room to swallow

I can’t do the moment  

The casket begins to sink

That slow

Merciless lowering  

That feels like the world  

Closing a door  

I’m still standing in  

I can’t do funeral  

Because my grief refuses  

To sit still or stay quiet  

It shakes through me 

It rises without warning

It hits like a memory  

I didn’t ask to remember  

So let me mourn the way I do

Messy

Loud

With tears that come in waves  

And silence that feels like drowning

Let me break in public

Let me hold their name  

Like it’s still warm

Let me talk to the empty air  

As if it still answers

Let me love them  

In the present tense

Because my heart hasn’t learned  

How to bury anything  

It still feels

I can’t do funeral

My words stay on repeat 

But I have to do this

This aching

This remembering

This carrying of what remains  

Like it’s still alive  

Inside me