Chasing Peace in the Labyrinth of Grief
This swing set used to be a jungle gym, a pirate ship, a chariot pulled by stallions. I hear your laughter. Did it always sound like tinkling wind mills in a happy breeze, or is that just how I remember it now? High in the swing, the world a blur of colours, the wind whipping through my hair. Your hands anchoring me to joy, then paper-thin, barely there in mine. Your laughter, now the sound of dry leaves rustling in the wind. Grief shatters everything. The enamel mug on the kitchen shelf, the one you used for morning tea. the half-finished wrapper on the table, the candy. It takes pieces away. Since you left, I have navigated the labyrinth of my thoughts, each turn marked by sorrow. Unaffected by the relentless noise tearing at my sanity, I have grown used to the fragments of joy shattered by grief. Today, I’m in a concert. The mosh pit below boils like a hormonal stew. The stage lights sear flesh a feverish red. Power chords pulverise the air. Yet, for me, the concert feels like a malfunctioning pleasure machine. Every pulsating bass line grates against longing only I can feel. It’s like my emotional radio dial is stuck – cranked to eleven on the celebration station, yet a faint, persistent signal splices snippets of grief into the data stream. Or like my libido is hijacked. Think of it this way— a steamy scene ripped straight from a late-night channel, only interrupted by a documentary about funeral arrangements. This juxtaposition, this clash between the primal and the profound, might be a glitch, a virus, but in this broken song, I find a morbid kind of arousal. It’s funny how pleasure and sorrow can coil together. I’ve found a strange comfort in the cacophony. In the chaos within a heart. At dawn, a tendril unfurls snaking through my slumber. The tendril weaves through the tissues of memory, until it reaches a hidden wellspring within. There, it erupts in a memorial geyser. Your presence haunts me, both soothing and agonising. Never truly gone, yet never fully here. It demands the remnants of my affection. Have you seen a miser hoarding coins in a broken vault? How can love linger long after its object has vanished? Does one ever heal from grief? Perhaps grief isn’t a journey towards healing, but an erosion of the very capacity to love. Your form waltzes in my mind. I want peace. Healing. But the pain burns brighter because you mimic her – the gentle hands, the kind eyes, yet devoid of the incandescent light only a mother’s love can spark. A mother’s embrace is a spectral sigil branded onto a desolate landscape. It is a thermal refuge. Loss can make facets of love sparkling like scattered gemstones become a disillusioned lapidary’s detritus. It’s a pulchritude—dignified yet suffocating. Tonight, my heart wavers. My spirit finds an unsettling comfort in the memory of your embrace. Though I can only remember.
The Colour of Grief is the silence between heartbeats
I stood at the cliff of my terror. Excavated years in the belly of a wound only to unearth it. Chiselled my heart from the cryptic etchings of the walls. nourished it with the brine of my sorrow. The colour of grief is the silence between heartbeats. It hums a dirge composed of dust and air dancing in the dying light. Thought joy is a hummingbird with iridescent wings too fast for these grieving eyes. So I built a nest of sorrow. Wove it with memories sharp as thorns. Hoped it would lure it back. But the nest glittered empty in the morning frost . Can the moonlight mend a broken spirit? It casts the room in a shroud of emptiness where the past weeps into the present. I write my grief in the language of despair hoping the ink will dry to dust before it reaches the dawn. I’ve been broken. folded into a thousand paper cranes. Taught that time is a predator stalking joy with the patience of a stone. The space between my ribs, home to a joyous harmony of hopes and dreams. Only a single note remains now. Lulled by the fading candle’s song, I dreamt of a rising sun, unaware of the approaching dusk. The world spins on, oblivious to the storm raging within. Can a broken heart be mended? What of a shattered soul? Is there a balm for the ache that burrows into the marrow? I search for an answer. Some days, silence is the only companion I can bear. I hope someday the visits of the past will finally fade. I have a confession. I built a pyre of memories. Hoped the flames would purge the pain. But sometimes, the only way to find peace is to pretend you are already gone.
BIO PENDING.
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