Waves of grief

 

"It can’t be" I yell at the sky

in disbelief, questioning why

as I clamp my hands

over your chest

and press and press and press.

Distress turns to panic,

to tired anguish, to frantic

thoughts rushing.

To crushing skies falling.

I’m counting seconds in hour-long pauses.

 

I press.

 

But nothing.

 

Lights flashing, crowded.

Brain crashing to a blue screen.

I can’t function. I can’t breathe.

 

"Take me" I whisper to the sky above,

"Take me, I used up so much luck,

Take me why won’t you listen?

Take me"

but the sky clouds over

leering like a mortician,

as funeral tears make their procession

to the ground at my feet.

 

I scream. I cry. I crack inside.

I build walls just to smash them.

Down. And I slump. "Ground

please swallow me. Absorb me"

I sink into the hungry slurping void,

The grey stagnant stew of memories.

I fill my mind with realms of nothing,

just empty plots to walk amongst.

Tombstone stories I can’t look upon.

Memories of you in frozen song.

 

And I walk, and hear

something from my childhood,

so long gone.

a faintly remembered song.

And I walk, feeling the melody itching,

the harmonies gripping my feet.

And I walk

ankle deep

in a gloomy swamp.

Feet clodded in gloopy memories.

Like tree branches hanging heavy,

every lifted limb feels like gravity

has been turned up to eleven.

 

and I plod on.

And the murk

now reaches my waist.

I feel every emotion

as it pours its way into my skin.

And I taste the tears

I can’t let escape.

I remember.

 

A flood of images,

A smile. A day.

Some light. Some shade, a laugh,

and tides of stories, crashing in waves.

 

And the squalid hole I’m slumped in,

begins to slowly drain,

and whilst my skin

is still stained in memories,

they no longer pull me down.

They remind me of better days,

tattoos of when you were around.